The one, the only, the original, Lao Gan Ma chili crisp. Accept no substitute. Unless the substitute is cheaper or better or something, then accept it.
The good shit.
Anyway, this stuff is the shit and I got hooked. It's not the cheapest thing in the world but you're not meant to eat a whole bunch (I do, but I'm not meant to) so it's not too bad. But there was a global shortage at the start of this year too so people got into homemade and DIY versions. Basically, it's crispy fried onions, crispy fried garlic, crispy fried chili flakes, Szechuan peppercorns (the "prickly ash" thing), salt, sugar, monosodium glutamate. It says "soybean" and it's the crunchy toasted variety, if you can get it by all means add some, but it's purely for texture, and can be replaced with toasted peanuts. I would add black pepper. Also replace part of the onions with shallots. Some recipes will say to fry everything at once but since the ingredients take different times to fry and to burn you'll mess something up no matter how carefully you time it. Other recipes say to heat up the oil and then pour over thinly sliced stuff and it "should" fry up from the residual heat, but it's also a gamble.
I say fry everything separately so that it fries as it should, ending with the chili flakes so that the oil gets chilied as well, and then combine everything.
Do you crisp? Know of any good alternatives? Tell me.
The good shit.
Anyway, this stuff is the shit and I got hooked. It's not the cheapest thing in the world but you're not meant to eat a whole bunch (I do, but I'm not meant to) so it's not too bad. But there was a global shortage at the start of this year too so people got into homemade and DIY versions. Basically, it's crispy fried onions, crispy fried garlic, crispy fried chili flakes, Szechuan peppercorns (the "prickly ash" thing), salt, sugar, monosodium glutamate. It says "soybean" and it's the crunchy toasted variety, if you can get it by all means add some, but it's purely for texture, and can be replaced with toasted peanuts. I would add black pepper. Also replace part of the onions with shallots. Some recipes will say to fry everything at once but since the ingredients take different times to fry and to burn you'll mess something up no matter how carefully you time it. Other recipes say to heat up the oil and then pour over thinly sliced stuff and it "should" fry up from the residual heat, but it's also a gamble.
I say fry everything separately so that it fries as it should, ending with the chili flakes so that the oil gets chilied as well, and then combine everything.
Do you crisp? Know of any good alternatives? Tell me.
