Lao Gan Ma Chili Crisp Copycat Recipe

It’s been about one week since a shelter in place order has been issued due to the outbreak of COVID-19. So far, I’ve mostly taken the opportunity to take care of a lot of chores and to slowly clean my place a lot. Much of the shopping I did early on was just for food to last a while and I didn’t think too much at the time about anything to write about. I was running low on my jar of Lao Gan Ma Chili Crisp and didn’t want to go to the grocery store just for that and maybe a few things. So I figured it would be a good time to try and reverse engineer this.

Ingredient lists are ordered by amounts and what I would assume for equal parts, to be listed in alphabetical order. So the Lao Gan Ma Chili Crisp is made up of: Soybean oil, chili, onion, fermented soybean, MSG, salt, sugar, pepper powder (Sichuan peppercorn), sulfur dioxide, and sodium sulfite. So when making this at home, obviously omit the sulfur dioxide and sodium sulfite since those two are just preservatives.

The nice thing about the ingredients list is that they list everything in both English and Chinese so it helps figure out a few things like in English, it lists “Pepper powder” which sounds ambiguous if you only look at it in English. Could it be chili peppers, ground black or white pepper, or Sichuan peppercorns? All you need to do is look at the Chinese side of the ingredients and it says it’s Sichuan peppercorn powder 花椒粉 fa jiu fan. As for the fermented beans, I’m honestly a little puzzled by them. The Chinese characters list them as 豆豉dau si which is something I’m pretty familiar in tasting. But the beans in the Lao Gan Ma sauces are nowhere as funky and bitter as your typical fermented black beans 豆豉. The ingredients does specify (soybeans, water) so maybe they are soaked for a while to remove the astringency. It’s also possible they have a proprietary kind of 豆豉 dau si made for the company that isn’t as fermented as the ones you normally find for cooking. I still decided to use it just to try it out.

I ended up making a lot and normally I wouldn’t be so comfortable putting up a recipe after my first attempt. It’s already pretty good and I think there are a few things I can do to improve it for the next time. But all things considering, with COVID-19 going around, I’ve been cooking far more practically and really trying not to waste anything. So in the spirit of this, and maybe for quite some time to come, the recipes that I will put up are going to be tested a lot less.

One thing I did make it a point to try and replicate is that I’ve always noticed how the Lao Gan Ma stuff has these fine gains of salt, sugar, and MSG on the sides of the jar, towards the bottom of them, and just a little left behind on the spoons when you dig into a bottle.

Look at all that tasty salt, sugar and MSG.

I really enjoy that part of it and as far as ideas go, I added the salt, sugar, and MSG after the chili oil has been cooled to get the same sort of grainy tasty bits I like at some point, sugar will melt when it’s heated so that’s also why I don’t add it when it’s hot.

RECIPE:

2 c. of neutral oil
1 1/2 c. of chili flakes
1/2 c. onion powder
1/3 c. fermented black beans 豆豉 dau si
2 tbsp. MSG
2 tbsp. salt
1 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tbsp. Sichuan peppercorn powder

In a bowl, submerge the fermented black beans 豆豉 dau si for half an hour, changing the water every 10 minutes. Each time you change the water, try and remove some of the loose skin pieces, but keep the beans as whole as possible. Drain on a paper towel to dry as much as possible.

In a pot, heat the oil over medium low heat until it is about 225-250F. Add the washed fermented black beans 豆豉 dau si, drop the heat to low, and stir regularly for about 8 minutes or until they start to become crispy. Be careful when you add them in as the water will bubble out, this is why you drain them on a paper towel so you don’t cause any boiling oil to burn you. You can tell they are crispy by taking a spoon and scooping one out. Blow on it a little to cool it down and with your fingernail, poke at it to see how crispy it is.

Add the chili flakes and onion powder and increase the heat back to medium low until the oil returns back to 225-250F then drop the heat to low so you can maintain the temperature around there as best as you can. This is a very low temperature fry so you need to keep an eye on this and to continuously stir so nothing burns. Fry for 10-15 minutes or until the desired toast for the mixture. Know that the mixture will continue to cook as you let it cool so you want to take it off the heat a little prematurely from what you really want it to be like. During the final 1 minute, add the Sichuan peppercorn powder and mix this in.

Take off the stove and let this cool to room temperature.

Once this is cooled, add the MSG, salt, and sugar and mix to combine. Transfer to a jar and enjoy.

Notes for myself or anybody who wants to try these adjustments. Next time, I would try to soak the fermented black beans 豆豉 dau si for a really long time, like overnight just to see what will happen with it. I think the onion powder can also be added sometime after the chili flakes to control the toast of them as well. I think there a little bit of a “too toasted” onion aroma for my preference.