Cooked ginger-scallion oil with chilli

Aromatics fried slowly in oil

This is the cooked cousin of raw ginger-scallion oil. Instead of pouring hot oil over raw aromatics, or mixing them raw, the cook fries minced ginger gently in a saucepan for about fifteen minutes until it turns a deeper golden yellow, then adds garlic, scallions and fresh chilli in turn and finishes with soy sauce, sugar, Shaoxing wine and salt. The publisher notes that frying in the pan gives a deeper, fuller flavour and a darker colour than the pour-over method.

It is a salty, chilli-spiced condiment traditionally spooned over Cantonese roast meats such as roast pork belly and soy sauce chicken, and it is typically served over poached chicken as well. The batch makes about two-thirds of a cup, which is a lot of sauce for a spoon-over condiment, and the card also says it serves twelve.

Why it is fried gently

Ginger leads by a wide margin: six tablespoons against one of garlic and three scallions. It goes into the oil first and has the longest time, fifteen minutes, because the aim is to cook the raw bite out of it, not to crisp it. The heat comes down to medium or medium-low if it sizzles hard, and the ginger should not visibly crisp or brown. Garlic follows for five to ten minutes, then the scallions and chilli only until they are cooked through, so the more delicate aromatics are not overcooked.

The seasoning is small by comparison: half a teaspoon of soy sauce, an eighth of a teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon of Shaoxing wine and a teaspoon of salt to taste. The chilli is optional, and without it the sauce is a plain cooked ginger-scallion oil. In the raw preparation the ginger and scallion are mixed uncooked in a smaller oil volume and served at once, which keeps a sharper, fresher flavour; the cooked version trades that sharpness for roundness.

Keeping it

The card says to use the oil at once or keep it in an airtight container or glass jar on the top shelf of the refrigerator for up to two weeks. That is the author's note. It has not been tested, and garlic, ginger and scallion held in oil are the kind of low-acid mixture that food-safety agencies treat with caution: the CDC advises refrigerating homemade oils containing garlic or herbs and discarding them after four days. Frying the aromatics does not make the mixture shelf-stable. A small batch used promptly is the safe reading of the recipe.