The only thing better than having had a best friend who has been your bosom pal for more than twenty five years is when that same friend possesses a finely tuned sense of irony. So it goes with my dear Ali. We met in my freshman year/her junior of high school and have been more or less inseparable since, sharing all of life’s ups and downs whether geographically close or quite literally separated by an entire country. When her brother married a lovely woman he met while working in the Sichuan province of China, and she started passing along honest-to-goodness Sichuan recipes to Ali, I was thrilled beyond compare because -naturally- those recipes started making their way into my recipe box. Along the way, Robin introduced Ali and her gang to a condiment called “Spicy Chili Crisp”. I’m going to go ahead and admit to you right now that until a year ago, I had NO idea what the real name of it was because it’s in tiny little letters at the bottom of the label. Instead, my family referred to this fabulous, sweat-inducing combo as “Happy Lady Sauce”. This name comes courtesy of the aforementioned ironic sensibilities of my bestie. How is it ironic?
Let’s just examine this label shall we? The ‘Happy Lady’ takes center stage here. I’ve seen other homemade versions of this refer to it as “Angry Lady Sauce” but I don’t feel the Happy Lady is enraged so much as she’s very ‘meh’ about the whole thing. And how she could be anything less than ecstatic over her sauce is beyond me. We are talking about the perfect blend of umami-packed spice, salt, and oil. Why is that so special? You scoop a little of the crispy chili-pepper bits over whatever you’re eating and the oil dribbles down into the dish and flavours it and makes me one seriously Happy Lady. I’ve served it on food here on FwF before and I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures. In fact, I’ll include a list of links to recipes that would be MAGNIFICENT with a hint of Happy Lady on it.
It’s not burn your face off hot, but you need to be made of sturdy stuff to eat Happy Lady Sauce in any large quantities. Most folks dip their chopsticks in and stir it into soup or drizzle the oil over their food. My people scoop it on with wild abandon. I can’t answer for their antics, but I do promise it’s good.
Why homemade? Why not just buy the stuff?
This is pretty much my husband’s fault. I don’t even know if I should admit publicly how much Happy Lady Sauce he and the boys consume as a unit. We’re talking about at least one jar every 5 days or so. Even at our local Asian market where the jars are a wickedly affordable $2.50, that still adds up pretty quickly. And I may have mentioned once or fifty times how far we LIVE from civilization, right? That’s a 3 hour round trip to stock back up on Happy Lady. Yes, I clear the shelves every time I go (and blush furiously when the clerk has to ring up 15 jars at the register), but it’s still not enough to keep us in the good stuff between trips. So the homemade solution was the obvious one. There’s a little more to it, though.
Let’s scoot that jar around and look at the ingredient label, shall we? Hmmm. Given the VAST quantities of this that my menfolk like to ingest, I’m pretty not okay with that level of Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), Sulfur Dioxide, and Sodium Sulfite. All that being said, my fellows really, REALLY love the homemade version and I’m so pleased to give them a healthier version of something we all love.
Warning. Happy Lady is habit forming. And unlike the model for the label, you’re actually going to SMILE when you eat it.
Cook’s Notes
- Do me a favour, would ya? Please don’t put your face anywhere near that grinder when you open it up after pulsing the hot peppers or you will -in all likelihood- cough up a lung and your face may melt off. Before opening the grinder, take a deep breath and hold it, then peek in there to see that it’s all good and dump it into a bowl before TURNING AWAY to breath. Otherwise, see previous caution. This is because hot pepper dust irritates the TAR out of your lungs. A nice strategy if you’re trying to break up some muck down there, but undesirable if you’re otherwise healthy.
- I’m well aware that guajillo peppers
are really not so very Chinese, but they do lend a little sweetness to the party and keep the Happy Lady from torching you from the inside out. If you really like pain and/or want to have a sauce that is truly Sichuan level in spiciness, omit the guajillos and substitute in another 1/4 cup of the Chinese Dried Chili Red Peppers 5.2oz
.
are really not so very Chinese, but they do lend a little sweetness to the party and keep the Happy Lady from torching you from the inside out. If you really like pain and/or want to have a sauce that is truly Sichuan level in spiciness, omit the guajillos and substitute in another 1/4 cup of the Chinese Dried Chili Red Peppers 5.2oz)
- You’ll want a spice grinder, blender, or food processor to pulse the dried chili peppers until they look like the picture above.
- The label specifies soybean oil, but I prefer to use peanut oil for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is that I think it tastes best. Besides, I’ve already discussed how truthful I think Mrs. Happy Lady is in her labeling.
- Don’t forget the Soy Nuts
that are MOST DEFINITELY in there. This adds some body, some crunch, some textural interest, and most importantly, some SOY FLAVOUR. I order a big old bag because my kids like to munch on them for snacks, too. Besides that, they last pretty close to forever.
- Speaking of the soy nuts, you don’t have to pulverize them before adding them to the mix. You really do want recognizable bits of them in the final product. I find that pulsing it in a clean spice grinder 4 times does the job. Alternatively, you could crush them lightly with a meat tenderizer or with a heavy pan.
- Do YOURSELF a favour and take the time to mince your onions and garlic as finely and evenly as possible. That makes the process of removing the moisture from them that much easier. You’re going to be adding them to some pretty hot oil (250°f) to slowly get the water out of them and toast them in the process. You’ll get a much more even (read: tastier) result if you take the time to cut the onions and garlic VERY small and very evenly.
- A word about storage. If you’ve done the job correctly and removed all the moisture from the onions and garlic, this should be okay at room temperature. Because I believe in caution, though, I’d advise storing it in the refrigerator, although how anything nefarious could grow in an environment that spicy is beyond me. (Which is just lousy science… I know…)
I think my label needs a little work. What do you think?
Happy Lady Sauce {Homemade Chinese Spicy Chili Crisp}
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups pure peanut oil
- 1 small onion peeled, trimmed of root and blossom ends, and evenly minced very small
- 1 large garlic clove peeled and evenly minced very small
- 1/4 cup roasted salted soy nuts, lightly broken up
- 2 cups of Chinese Dried Red Chili Peppers or Japones peppers, stems removed, and pulsed to break up in a blender, food processor, or spice grinder
- 6 dried Guajillo chiles stems removed, and pulsed to break up in a blender, food processor, or spice grinder
- 1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorn ground finely
- 2 tablespoons raw sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
Instructions
-
Heat the peanut oil to 250°F in a heavy-bottomed 2-quart saucepan. Add the onions and garlic to the oil and cook the mixture, stirring frequently, until the bubbling slows down to almost nothing and the onions and garlic are a light toasted, golden brown colour. Add the lightly broken soy nuts and cook for 1 more minute. Remove from the heat and add in the ground chili peppers, Sichuan peppercorn, and sugar. Let cool to room temperature, uncovered. Stir in salt, transfer to a pint jar with a tight fitting lid.
Recipes that would be great with Happy Lady:
Korean Miso and Honey Glazed Salmon
Slow-Cooker Korean Style Beef Tacos
Chinese Style Barbecued Pork (Char Siu)
Sweet and Sour Ham Ball Stir Fry
JangsangJeok {Korean Simmered Teriyaki Beef Patties}
Sticky Garlic and Ginger Venison {or beef} Stir Fry
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