We peeled off the seal, tasted a pinch and… okay, there was no way we could use it as table condiment. It was so hot that my daughter gulped down a glass of milk to wash away the heat. I said I’d fix it.
If you find that your jar of chili oil is hotter than what your mouth can handle, here’s a trick.
I dumped the contents of the jar into a pot. I filled the jar with extra virgin coconut oil, poured it in, refilled the jar with oil, and poured it in again.
I stirred everything together and waited just until the oil was bubbly. I turned off the heat and let the mixture cool overnight.
The following day, I used two tablespoons of the oil in the dish and the heat was still overwhelming. So I repeated the process. I added two more jars of oil, waited until the mixture was bubbly, cooled the now very diluted chili oil and tried it again. That did the trick.
So, we now have five jars of chili oil. We’re paying it forward by giving away three jars of the stuff. The remaining two jars will go a long, long way for our home consumption.
Here are a few dishes with chili oil. Some of them were cooked with our homemade Sichuan chili oil; others with chili oil from the grocery. The first in the list though was cooked with the diluted Nepalese chili oil.
Sticky rice with pork, sausage and mushrooms
It’s machang (the Filipino adaptation of the Chinese lo mai gai or zongzi) but without the leaf wrapper. Delicious and filling, make it in bulk for a party.
Poached chicken with ginger scallion sauce
Skin-on chicken thigh fillets are poached with ginger and scallions, cut into strips, arranged in a bowl, drizzled with Sichuan chili oil, and topped with ginger scallion sauce that is traditionally served as a dipping sauce for Hainanese chicken.
