All-Purpose Cold Dish Dressing
I've been using this universal cold-dish dressing for years. It works beautifully tossed with pork ear, beef, cucumber, or wood ear mushrooms—no matter what I pair it with, a single bowlful is never enough.
Ingredients
coarse chili powder
10 g (bright red)
minced garlic
6 g (3-4 cloves, finely chopped)
minced ginger
4 g (finely chopped)
chopped scallion
8 g (white and green parts chopped together)
bird's eye chili
8 g (cut into rings)
white sesame seeds
3 g (raw)
rapeseed oil
30 g (approx. 3 tbsp)
five-spice powder
1 g
salt
2 g
chicken powder
3 g
oyster sauce
5 g
light soy sauce
10 g
vinegar
5 g
white sugar
3 g
Instructions
1
Step 1
Prepare a ceramic bowl. Do not use a glass bowl, as hot oil poured in may cause it to crack. Add coarse chili powder, minced garlic, minced ginger, chopped scallion, and bird's eye chili to the bowl and spread them over the bottom.
2
Step 2
Sprinkle white sesame seeds and five-spice powder on top. These two ingredients are light, so placing them on the upper layer allows them to be aromatic from the steam of the hot oil splashing up, without burning.
3
Step 3
Heat the pan, then pour in 30 g of rapeseed oil. Turn to medium heat and heat for about 1.5 minutes, until the oil surface starts to sway gently, then thin wispy smoke rises, indicating the oil temperature is around 70-80% heat. Turn off the heat and wait for about 15 seconds.
4
Step 4
Pour the oil into the bowl in two batches. Pour in the first half first, stir quickly with a spoon to coat all the ingredients with oil. The aroma will immediately burst out, filling the whole room with the scent of chili and garlic. Then pour in the remaining oil and continue stirring.
5
Step 5
Wait for the oil temperature in the bowl to drop, then add salt, chicken powder, oyster sauce, light soy sauce, vinegar, and white sugar. Stir everything evenly. The order must not be changed: adding light soy sauce and vinegar first preserves their umami, and adding oyster sauce preserves its aroma. If the order is wrong, the flavor will be off.
6
Step 6
Taste to check the seasoning. Add more salt if it's not salty enough, add a few drops of vinegar if it's not sour enough. This cold dish dressing is a basic recipe, and can be adjusted slightly depending on the dish you are tossing: add Sichuan peppercorn oil when tossing vegetarian dishes, add an extra half spoon of vinegar when tossing meat dishes.
7
Step 7
How to tell if the oil temperature is just right? Method: Dip a clean chopstick into a small amount of chili powder, then put it into the oil to test. If it sizzles and the chili powder does not turn black, the temperature is perfect. If the chili powder turns black immediately, the oil is too hot, so let it cool for a while longer.
