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Wilson Fok

Chilli oil took the heat early this year when David Chang, of Momofuku fame, sent a cease-and-desist Dto two brands of chilli oil producers as he attempted to trademark his “chilli crunch” product.
The trademark request quickly turned sour, burnt out, and eventually Chang walked back his trademark attempt and apologised.
But what makes such a humble condiment – found on tables everywhere in Hong Kong, from Michelin-starred venues to cha chaan tengs – so important that an American food mogul would seek to seize a part of the market?

Ronald Shao, executive chef at Mian, at The Murray, has been making chilli oil for decades. He reveals that the prevalence of chillies in certain regional cuisines is due to the fact that, according to traditional Chinese medicine, they help exorcise excessive moisture from the body.
“[That explains] the frequency of seeing spicy food in cuisines from Sichuan, Guizhou, Shaanxi and Hunan – their humid climates require different forms of chillies in their daily meals,” he says.
Shao has developed his own personal chilli oil recipe, a variation of youlazi, the Sichuan version that leaves a layer of chilli sediment in the oil. This contrasts with the plain chilli oil often used by Teochew-style fishball noodle vendors or XO sauce, where heat is an add-on element for the umami-rich seafood-based condiment.
The process for creating Shao’s recipe is not as complicated as one may think, but it is full of crucial steps. Key points include using rapeseed oil as the base as it features little flavour of its own to confound the pure taste of the chillies, skipping garlic (unlike Momofuku) which would “take over and steal the show”, and the addition of a high proof sorghum spirit into the spice mix to ensure the extra spices used don’t burn in the oil.

While Shao relies on traditional Chinese culinary wisdom and repeated testing to refine his chilli oil, ArChan Chan at Ho Lee Fook fuses contemporary cooking techniques and a touch of Western culinary philosophy when creating hers.
Chan’s process is very similar to Shao’s but the ingredients are different. She adds chopped leeks together with the flavouring vegetables and mixes her chillies of choice, using dried bird’s eye chillies for aroma and heat, and Korean red chilli flakes, generally used in kimchi, to lend the finished oil a sweeter touch. While her spice blend varies, Chan always makes sure to add green Sichuan peppercorns into her chilli oil, because, “These peppercorns pack a punch in each bite, and they add a numbing sensation, creating that numbing and hot mala flavour profile.”

Like Shao, Chan is proud of her creation and uses it in many of her dishes – the oil itself is often added to dressings with a touch of soy sauce, and is the finishing touch to the SoHo restaurant’s popular take on mapo tofu.
Elsewhere, the crunchy sediment gets added to Ho Lee Fook’s seafood-rich Stir-Fry King dish, as well as lettuce wraps, providing heat and texture without making things too oily.
While the two chefs agree on the importance of chilli oil in Chinese cuisine, their criteria for what constitutes a good chilli oil differs. “Judging by appearance, you can pour the oil on a plate and tilt it slightly, if the oil runs a sharp shade of red and is clear, that’s an indication of a good chilli oil,” explains Shao.

Chan focuses more on the enjoyment of the oil itself. “By taste, a good chilli oil added to a bowl of soup should give off a clean aroma, while dipping food in the oil should make you want more of it, but only as an accompaniment,” she says.
Both Shao and Chan reacted with disappointment to the news that Momofuku was seeking to trademark chilli crunch and fence off a corner of the market for itself.
Shao believes the condiment should be available to food lovers around the world and that the key to preserving culinary traditions like Chinese-style chilli oil is to spread the love and let others try their hand at making it.
“Eventually others may come up with ways to improve it for the better. They may even find new ways to enjoy it! Keeping recipes a secret is not the way to success,” Shao says.

Chan shares Shao’s vision. “Maybe it is the Western way, to want to own what you learn. That’s the business side of things,” she says. “But for the sake of preserving traditions, it helps if everyone can pour their knowledge into the same pot and build on it. That is a loftier goal than to trademark something already shared in the first place.”
Chan offers one final note of caution: “I’m all for everyone showing love to chilli oil, but it is also important to understand that a finished dish holds a specific flavour profile as designed by the chef who prepares it. So please, never put chilli oil on egg fried rice!”


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Ronald Shao, executive chef at Mian, at The Murray hotel in Hong Kong, cooks chilies to make the restaurant’s home-made chilli oil. Photo: Jocelyn Tam

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The humble condiment is so popular everywhere that Momofuku’s David Chang had to withdraw his trademark request and apologise
There’s more than one way of creating the perfect chilli oil – as we hear from Mian’s Ronald Shao and ArChan Chan at Ho Lee Fook in Hong Kong


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Over Momofuku? How to make spicy chilli oil at home, according to 2 Hong Kong chefs

The humble condiment is so popular everywhere that Momofuku’s David Chang had to withdraw his trademark request and apologise There’s more than one way of creating the perfect chilli oil – as we hear from Mian’s Ronald Shao and ArChan Chan at Ho Lee Fook in Hong Kong

The humble condiment is so popular everywhere that Momofuku’s David Chang had to withdraw his trademark request and apologise

There’s more than one way of creating the perfect chilli oil – as we hear from Mian’s Ronald Shao and ArChan Chan at Ho Lee Fook in Hong Kong