In addition to the Fried Peanuts and Homemade Sesame Paste, I also made the Sichuan Málà (Hot and Numbing) Chile Oil recipe from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook yesterday. I already have a chili oil that I like and have made multiple times from The Woks of Life.

Kenji’s recipe is most distinct in his use of whole dried chiles. These are seeded, cut into small pieces, and then toasted with some Sichuan peppercorns. The toasted chiles and peppercorns are then ground into red-pepper flake size.

With the whole chiles and ground down and set aside, the aromatics are gently fried in oil for about 30 minutes. Kenji prefers “caiziyou” for this oil, which is a roasted rapeseed oil, but I was unable to find it so used regular canola oil.

After the oil is infused with the flavors from the aromatics, they get strained from the oil. The home-ground chiles are added along with additional store-bought ground Sichuan or Korean chile flakes. These simmer for just a few minutes. Kenji says he likes this method over pouring hot oil over chile flakes because he gets more consistent results from it.

Finally the chile oil is finished with sesame seeds, salt, and (optional) MSG, which I opted for.

The final result is tasty (what chile oil isn’t??), but toasting and grinding the dried chiles was a lot of work. I’m happy with The Woks of Life recipe, but if I make Kenji’s again, I’ll probably substitute additional store-bought ground chile flakes for the whole chiles.

I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.