It is pretty amusing that something like that, which requires pouring hot oil over dried crushed chiles, could be mistakenly advertised by the vendor as “fat free.” The oil is like half the point of it.
I finally scored a jar of Angry Grandma, which I didn’t see at my usual local store before. Looking at all the oil in the jar, I was reminded of some samples of something Asian that were being handed out at some store years ago, with a delicious spicy sauce. I asked the serving lady what the sauce was and she replied in her Chinese-accented English “chili in hoyl”. Which is basically what this is – chili in hoyl. 
I even bought a few jars of something like that at the time which I quite liked, but I don’t think it was genuine Angry Grandma.
I have lots of Asian stuff to try it on, especially potsticker dumplings. Would be a pity if I greatly preferred it to my standard go-to, Huy Fong chili garlic sauce, because besides the stuff that’s on the go, I have two huge jars of it in the cupboard. But I gather that the two condiments are quite different so I guess each has its place.
BTW, there is no peanut in this batch of Angry Grandma. Among other things there is onion, black bean sauce, and something called Chinese prickly ash.
This made me curious enough to look it up. Apparently, Sichuan peppercorns aren’t really peppers! They are in fact the berries of the Prickly Ash Tree and are more closely related to citrus. That explains why the flavor is so dramatically different than other varieties of pepper.
Bumping this thread to say that I found a fantastic use for “angry grandma” chili crisp. I prepared my current fave snack, large black tiger shrimp cocktail, and mixed up my usual ketchup + hot horseradish dipping sauce. Sniffing around for something to enhance it with, I mixed in a generous dollop of angry grandma. Man, that stuff adds some great depth of umami plus the kick of chili peppers and blends perfectly into the seafood sauce. I should patent this stuff!
I actually recommended the otherday, to a brother Latino, in a “group”, that he should make his own Latino Niche’ Marketing spot to preempt all this Asian Chile Crisp, that is “Fire”, right now. He has a fermented kind of “chile oil”, that I think he should take in the direction of “Salsa Macha”- Toasted sesame and pepitas and cacahuates… some dried chile and crispy onion and garlic.
I used this chili crisp many years ago with peanuts, early 2000 's in my Chinese Sesame Paste Noodles from the Oriental Grocery. So, it’s still there, I can go to the Asian Market and get my Chinese Ingredients and condiments for my dan-dan noodles.
Kirin Asian Mart just opened, by me.
#kirinasianmart
And I would probly go there, alone,exclusively for the best fresh seafood at value prices.
A further update on chili crisp – something that I either didn’t know about or had forgotten about when this thread was started.
I mentioned a couple of posts up about blending “angry grandma” chili crisp with shrimp cocktail sauce – what a fantastic concoction! Today I was making up my usual dipping sauce for some spring rolls I was having for dinner, which usually consists of plum sauce with some Huy Fong chili garlic sauce mixed in. Naturally, thoughts turned to using “angry grandma” instead of the chili sauce. And behold: another great success!
I’m coming to believe that the fantastic contribution of “angry grandma” to these sauces means it’s actually more valuable as an ingredient than as a sauce in itself. Opinions may vary, but by golly, I’m totally sold on its value in both shrimp cocktail sauce and plum sauce.
You are a credit to the world of culinary exploration. Angry Grandma loves you (she just looks angry). 
A peek into a private moment last night offers insight into the validity of my observations. After the spring rolls were consumed, I was putting the dipping sauce bowl into the dishwasher when I noticed a small amount of “angry plum sauce” remaining. I got a spoon, scraped out the remains, and ate it. In the process, one might have heard a small whimper, the canine equivalent of “yummm”.
The umami that angry grandma adds to these sauces is considerable. The remains of the dipping bowl included some wonderful crunchy bits that I presume to have been peppers (berries) of the prickly ash.
Those sichuan peppercorns (as they are typically known around here) have a very distinct, numbing taste to them. They are a bit citrussy, but their tell-tale is a slight tingling they leave around your tongue and mouth. The first time I consumed them, I scared myself half to death thinking I was having some sort of allergic reaction when the Internet assured me, no, that’s normal. They are the má part of the important Sichuan flavor concept, málà, meaning “numbing” with là meaning “spicy.”
I didn’t notice the numbing but in that particular case it was mixed in with a fair amount of plum sauce, and in the previous case, with shrimp cocktail sauce.
I personally haven’t had much success using “angry grandma” by itself, which is why I was so enthused by the wonderful attributes that it adds to other sauces. I’ve tried it with ramen, and it just wasn’t right – standard chili garlic sauce is more appropriate to my taste, but with ramen I usually don’t add any hot sauce at all. With Singapore noodles, my preference would still be a bit of chili garlic sauce.
It would probably work well as a dipping sauce for dim sum dumplings, but what I usually do with those is garnish them with a small amount of chili garlic sauce and then use soy sauce for dipping. Chili crisp doesn’t have the right consistency to be used the same way. Yet “angry grandma” does seem so inherently compatible with dumplings that this calls for further culinary research – maybe I should just use it as a dipping sauce and forget the soy, or maybe mix in a bit of soy sauce with it … being a chef is hard, especially for a dog!
Yeah, for me, as a noodle topping is by far my most usual use for chili crisp. Or I’ll even put it on some nice crusty bread with butter. But, yeah, pairs with carbs. Or with soups.
This. Our best local store has Lao Gan Ma with fermented soybeans, or garlic, or peanuts, or onion, or “chicken flavour”, or mushrooms or black beans. Only the one with peanuts also comes in big bottles along with the smaller ones. They are all fairly similar (one supposes) and reasonably priced.
If you order Szechuan food in Beijing, you might get a dish which uses half a pound of peppercorns and literally covers up everything else in the dish. They live up to their prickly reputation, but are so good…
Of course in addition to the many above varieties, Lao Gan Ma also makes a bottle labelled “Canada” and chili crisp. This version has black beans rather than fermented soybeans, and no peanuts or onions on the ingredient list. It is good, but sometimes better still mixed with mustard, or horseradish, or nuts and scallions. Haven’t tried it on seafood. A 24oz. bottle costs $7.99 here (US $6).
The name reminds me of a cereal commercial.
“You can’t have chili for breakfast.
But you can have chili crisp…”
A post was merged into an existing topic: SeamusMuadhen Trock posts
Bumping this thread to give a recommendation for a new brand I just tried:
It doesn’t have a very crunchy texture, but the flavor is sensational. Very rich and deeply umami.
Hmmm. The ‘mild’ and corn oil don’t speak to me, but if it tastes great, power to you.
Amusingly though, if you click on the link to the S&B store below the product name, it appears to take you to a source for truck parts. Crappy Amazon page strikes again!