Occasional cooks: chili oil

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Via The Woks of Life

Although I am generally not a fan of spicy food, chili oil on dumplings may be one of my favourite condiment combinations of all time.

The other week, I ordered some dumplings, but was disappointed to find the restaurant did not include chili oil, so I set out to see if I could make some in the hour before the food was due.

My first concern was that was not enough time for the flavour to infuse into the oil, but that definitely wasn't a problem.

The first recipe I found was rather complex - it infuses a whole load of other spices into the oil, before you even get to the chili! I didn't have most of these spices, so I'm putting this recipe aside for another day.

In the end, all I did was heat up some peanut oil with chili flakes. The end result definitely did the job. However, the remaining amount, now in a jar in the fridge, has a very cloudy appearance - not sure how to deal with that.

I did take on board the recipe's advice to add salt. My first taste of the oil before adding salt was pretty off-putting (funnily enough, it tasted too oily).

If you're desperate for an update on my five-serves-of-veg scheme - well, that idea was always a bit of a fever dream, but I did give it a trial run on the weekend.

On Saturday, I found myself at lunch time, without having gone shopping, and with dye in my hair, so no running out for something quick. I remembered I had frozen veg, so I began the experiment.

I weighed out five serves, according to the "1 serve = 75 gm" recommendation - and the quantity was less than I had envisioned!

Steamed it, ate it with some butter, salt and pepper.

And, well, my initial reason for thinking this would fail, that a bowl of five serves would be overwhelming, did not turn out to be the case. I could eat it all, without any trouble.

But after eating it, I was hungrier than before! I had forgotten the fact that I know about myself - without some carbs and/or protein in a meal, I will never be satisfied.

And so, while I knew this was always a ridiculous idea, I have now had it proven to myself quite handily.

Also, I discovered that frozen cauliflower is awful. Like, well and truly vile. I'm going to have to pick it out of the remains of the bag. Unless - chili oil might make it bearable? Call back!