You can use this chili oil as a condiment on just about any Asian food: Mix it with equal parts soy sauce for a great noodle sauce, or try it with some Zhenjiang black vinegar as a dumpling sauce. Heck, I even go Western with it, oven-roasting potatoes or cauliflower in it.
A note on the ingredients:
You should be able to find preserved black beans (douchi) at any Chinese market. Look for ones labeled Yang Jiang, named for the city in Guangdong Province that makes the most famous douchi. Yang Jiang black soybeans are salted and fermented with ginger, and this brand, at least, must be smoked because the beans have a distinct hint of smoke. Some people rinse them before use, but I just run a knife through them for a rough chop.
The kind of red pepper flake used in chili oil makes a big difference. Sichuan chili flakes are the best, but are difficult to find outside of Sichuan. Although you can find whole, dried Chinese red peppers in the U.S., I don't recommend processing them to make flakes for this recipe; they are difficult to de-seed and grind into flakes that are fine enough for this purpose, and their jagged edges are unpleasant. Instead, I recommend using coarse-ground Korean red pepper flakes, which is easy to find and, while not as bright red as Sichuan chili flakes, have a similar color, texture, and medium-hot heat. Just made sure it's coarse, and not fine powder. —Taylor Holliday
See what other Food52ers are saying.