The Nuances of Chilli

All across China, each region has a different attitude towards chilli. What does this mean for customers around the world? It's important to know the history and differences in how chillis are treated across the country so that one is not unpleasantly surprised by the flavour of a regional sauce.

When one talks about chilli and China in the same breath, Szechuan province normally pops up later in the same sentence. Known both within and outside the country as the chilli capital of China, the home of famous spicy hotpots and the most famous crispy chilli sauces is the obvious place to start a research journey.

Before diving into the steamy heart of Chengdu though, it is interesting to look across the rest of the country. It may come as a surprise that many provinces, most famously Shanghai, actively dislike spicy food. You can eat meal after meal in these areas and not see a flake of chilli. Even Hong Kong tends to put ‘latchu’ as an optional side dish for dipping rather than within the cooking itself. Elsewhere, chillis are added whole, fresh, dried, fermented and in a myriad of local ways across this vast nation.

Chengdu and Szechuan though are considered the heartlands of chilli in China. Each family has their own favourite with many making their own particular versions – some with ginger, others star anise, but each recipe built around a core of a few constants ingredients. One of the most iconic kinds of chilli used is largely unavailable outside of Szechuan and the neighbouring province of Guizhou is a local variety called "erjingtiao", whose colour and flavour are unique. Mildly spicy but strongly aromatic, they impart the oil in which they are cooked with a deep red colour. Other varieties of chilli, of which there are many hundreds, are then combined to give depth of flavour or level of spice.

Once you have your chillis, the next thing is to prepare them. Dry roasted in a wok and then ground up, they are then scorched with boiling aromatically-infused rapeseed oil. The oil is poured 3 times – first hot to extract the colour (referred to as ‘cockroach red’), then cooler to bring out the spiciness and finally at a relatively low heat for finishing. 
The heat of a sauce is a complementary aspect, not the main event (unlike in Hunan where chilli sauces are a full-on affront to the ability to handle heat).

After the first taste, the aromatic flavours that fill the mouth and then linger afterwards in Szechuan derived chilli sauces are that of Szechuan peppercorns. In the west, these are usually seen as small dried reddish berries in small plastic packets and are one of the ingredients in Chinese 5-spice powder. Added to food they create the sense of numbing or ‘mala’ in the mouth but do not have the strongest taste otherwise. However the green variety, the berries coming from a different variety of Chinese Prickly Ash, have an intense citrus flavour along with the strong mala sensation. These flavours and the mala sensation you find in many noodle dishes, most famously some Dan Dan Noodle recipies.

Travel away from deep Szechuan and the chilli sauces start to change. The local varieties of peppers are different and local populations have developed their own unique variations. Most famous of these without any doubt is Lao Gan Ma from Guizhou, a brand which now spans the world.

Our crispy chilli sauce remains deeply adherent to the traditional flavours of Szechuan. We use authentic local ingredients and cooking methods to create the distinctly rich, pleasantly numbing flavour of Chilli Crisp.