Why hello there, and welcome back to Kitchen Catastrophe, where, if we aren’t out on time today, at least it’s not fully my fault: one of the elements of today’s post got delayed in transit, so I had to handle this Thursday afternoon in a rush. Hopefully. I’m actually writing this part of the post ahead of time, to maximize our odds of getting it up (heh) in time, so I don’t know if the package arrived Thursday yet. (editor’s note: It actually arrived Friday, so we were able to taste them on their own, but not on dumplings) Hope that pans out, Future Jon!

As you can see, I even made SOME room for if they were a day or two late. But hey, that’s the way things are right now. Totally understandable.

So, why are we here? Well, as I noted briefly on Monday, Dumplings are another traditional meal for Lunar New Year. I had actually considered making them, either by hand or by cooking up pre-made ones to serve with the Longevity Noodles, but there was a sudden rush at the H-Mart, so we decided to get in line and get going, so I didn’t have time to look at their dumplings too much, and didn’t find ground pork to make the dumplings myself. That pushed me to my Back-up plan: I had already ordered several dumplings online…only for both of the businesses to tell me that I wasn’t going to get them in time: one company has a policy to not ship out dumplings after Wednesdays, so there’s NO chance they get stuck in transit on a Sunday, (A completely reasonable limitation for most people.) and they didn’t get to process my order (placed last Tuesday) in time. The other said “our dumplings are on pre-order until the second week of February”. Which…they don’t SAY is because of Lunar New Year, but that feels connected. So we’re now on the third or fourth back-up.

But I wanted to do this post because these elements are things I’m really interested in. If you’re unaware, there’s a couple go-to sauces for dumplings in Chinese/Japanese cuisine. Or, rather, there’s ONE go-to, built a couple different ways. Essentially, both Japan and China agree that what best offsets juicy dumplings is a salty, mildly acidic, and spicy sauce. To do this, you typically mix soy sauce, vinegar, water, and chili oil.  This is where those red packets you get with take-out come from:

I found out you can get like, 800 of these for $80 plus shipping. So each of these is a DIME.

The left side is chili oil*, the right side is Soy/Vinegar, in case you can’t read the image but can somehow read this. Now, some people don’t like as much spiciness, so they only use the soy vinegar. When making it at home, you might pep it up with some minced garlic or baton-ed ginger. On the other hand, some people don’t think you need all that soy sauce and vinegar to get a good sauce for the dumpling, and just go straight for the Chili Oil/Chili Crisp*. Which is better? Let’s find out.

*- I would like to take a moment here, and acknowledge that there is some confusion/disagreement on chili oil/hot oil vs Chili/Chile Crisp. For a basic run-down: Chili oil or hot oil is, well, what it says on the tin, technically: it is oil that has been infused with chilis. However, it is pretty traditional in Chinese cooking to “leave in the sediment”: ie, the flecks of chili, and other potential seasonings. (it’s less common in Japanese cooking, where the un-sedimented oil is called rayu. The version with sediment is called taberu rayu, or “rayu for eating”) That’s the little jar of red oil with chili flakes at Chinese restaurants: chili oil. However, due to the Chinese love of texture, some places use more sediment, or intentionally add crunchy elements like fried shallots:  when you want to make a distinction between the two, you call the latter “chili crisps” (or chile crisps, depending on how you choose to spell it) Making things even MORE confusing is the introduction of regional variants: Sichuan hot oil is different than Cantonese hot oil, is different than rayu.

For a minute, I had a brain-blast, and wondered if the name was the inspiration for the rapper from Fort Minor. But apparently his name is RYU, and it’s based on his name, Ryan.

That clarification out of the way, I’d like to thank the companies I got these sauces from, who in no way agreed to be a part of this, or have any awareness I am doing this. I apologize for nothing, let’s dig in.

Test 1: Raw Dogging

Remember on Monday, when you were asking questions and being oddly confrontational, Title Jon? I miss that energy.

Anywho, obvious way to first taste an ingredient is to just straight up taste it! We’ll be comparing 4-7 sauces (again, I do not know if the second package has arrived yet), from 2-3 producers. One will be Mike’s Hot Oil.

This jar looks weirdly small due to the angle.

Mike’s Hot Oil is courtesy of Mike Chen/Strictly Dumpling, a Chinese-American YouTuber whose stuff I’ve been watching for well over a year. It’s a Hot Oil with sediment. He also makes a fried-garlic studded chili crisp, but, full disclosure, this is not a new bottle of hot oil. While I ordered several new sauces/oils, I actually got Mike’s MONTHS ago, if not over a full year now. Thus, the bottles have had plenty of time to get lost.

The other three sauces I DEFINITELY have, as opposed to the Quantum Shipping Three, are from Xiao Chi Jie, a soup-dumpling restaurant in Seattle, who shipped me 3 bags of dumplings, and 3 sauces: their “classic vinegar”, “umami”, and “Chile Crisp”. They also told me, in an email, to tag them on FB or Instagram when I serve the dumplings, so I’m taking that as tacit permission to be reviewed.

They also suggested tagging an unboxing, so here’s a picture of bags in cold pack. You can see a nub of dry ice in the bottom.

Lastly, because I wasn’t sure they’d even get into the post, I got 3 jars of…stuff, from Fly By Jing, a company focusing on bringing Sichaun flavors to America. The name is a reference (explained on every bottle) to “Fly restaurants”, a term for restaurants in Sichaun so popular that customers swarm them like flies, and “Jing” the birth-name of the company creator. I said “Stuff” instead of “sauces” because one of the jars is a dry spice mix.

SO, TASTING NOTES:

I started with Xiao Chi Jie, because I liked their packaging the most: the pattern of each bottle having one word of the name appeased me somewhere. I will also note that these guys do NOT mess around when dealing with food safety, at least on the shipping end: they’re the ones who refuse to ship after Wednesday, and the package only took a day to get to me, and still had probably 3 pounds of dry ice in it. This did end up helping delay the post, because it meant the sauces were 100% frozen solid when they arrived, and while I tried to thaw them in cool water, they ended up having to camp out in the fridge overnight.

Classic Vinegar

This pic is of the outside of the bottle, rather than its contents, because “spoon of black liquid” felt weirdly threatening.

The vinegar is…certainly vinegar. It’s interesting, in that it has a kind of maltiness to it. Which I think might be a dumb thing to say, since I think rice malt is one of the ingredients. Nope, that’s wheat bran. It’s interesting to me, because it’s not as sharp as some vinegars I’ve had, but its acidity is…broader? It feels like it washes over the tongue, coating the whole surface. It’s not a sweet/fruity as some black vinegars I’ve had.

Umami Sauce

I regret not choosing to take the pic of the outside of this one, because this isn’t threatening, but it IS off-putting.

Weird, but not in a bad way. It’s a mixture of garlic, green onion, ginger, salt and oil. (And probably some other things. I should have taken pictures of the ingredient list.) The thing that most stands out to me about it is that the website suggests using it as the aromatic base for stir-fry, and…yeah, that feels like a great use case. It’s a little weird to think of it as a ‘sauce’, or to put it over things, because it feels more like a prepared INGREDIENT. I definitely LIKE it: there’s a brightness to it from the ginger and a richness: the oil FEELS ‘thicker’ than for the chili oils.

And…before I give my notes on the chile crisp, I actually want to jump categories, since that way I can compare all three’s chili oils/crisps against each other pretty directly. SO LET’S GO to JING

Now, as mentioned, these guys got here a little late, so they’re not getting Taste test 2. But the three things we got from Fly By Jing were the Sichuan Chili Crisp, The “Zhong” Sauce, and The Mala Spice Mix.

MALA MIX

Ah, yes, the special powders.
That joke is for like, 10 people, and 2 of them WILL NOT see it.

AS we’ve covered before, mala in Chinese means “numbing spicy”, and refers to the pairing of Szechuan (Or Sichuan) Peppercorns with chilis and other flavors, to make a contrasting experience of “heat” and “cold/numbess”. This spice mix is therefore meant to be sprinkled over foods you want to add some spiciness to. Taken with a dry pinch, it’s not super spicy on its own. The primary flavor I get from it is cumin and smokiness, so I think if you like Southwest foods, this might be a good entry point. Like, this stuff sprinkled over a grilled chicken breast or steak would be pretty good.

Zhong Sauce

See, this one has texture and is technically red, but it’s still very threatening.

This sauce has a weirdly simple name that is also kind of convoluted, but follow me here: so, the capital of Sichuan is Chengdu. EAST of Sichuan is the municipality of Chongqing, a city that was formerly part of Sichuan, but has since grown big enough to be its own entity. In either Chengu or Chongqing (there are conflicting reports, at least in the sources I can find) the a street food vendor named Zhong started selling dumplings with a specific sauce, consisting of a mixture of Sichuan Chili oil and sweetened soy sauce. These “Zhong dumplings” or “Dumplings in Zhong sauce” have been popular for around 100 years Making matters more confusing/irritating is that “Zhong” is just a WORD in Chinese (loyal), and in Chongqing, there is a Zhong county. It’s like if we had “Grant” Sauce. The IMPORTANT thing is that this is, basically, just a chili crisp with some brown sugar. So it’s spicy and sweet, with a bit of chewiness, and it’s pretty damn good.

The Hot Ones

So, we come to the hot oils/Chile Crisps. How do they rank? Let’s find out.

Xiao Chi Jie’s

Man, I hope there are visible differences between the next three pictures, or this was a waste of time and space.

This is the “brightest” of the three contenders, and the least spicy. There’s definitely chili flavor, but it doesn’t burn to the same extent as the other two. There’s a notably stronger hit of the sesame oil in the mixture, a kind of nuttiness that complements some bitterness in the mixture as well. That brightness is a little strange, compared to the other two, but still enjoyable. This is definitely something I would give to someone who doesn’t LOVE spicy foods, as a way to pep things up.

Fly By Jing

Alright, at least this is super different than the first one. This is like tar.

The texture here is noteworthy, as it retains some of the sticky, chewy texture we found in the Zhong sauce. The others have more of “stiff flakes of chili skin”, while this feels like it’s reduced those elements down to a tacky paste. This one has an interesting ‘roll’ to it: both it and Mike’s hot oil build in heat over time more than XCJ’s, but this one feels like there’s a ‘dip’ between the first couple bites, and then the build in heat. Almost like a roller-coaster for you tongue: you get the taste, it’s a little warm, then it dies off, and then suddenly it warms up again and build to a nice little feeling of spice. IT has a similar “mouth blanketing” quality as the XCJ vinegar. I would say this one has the “darkest” taste, which I think I’ve mentioned before, but there’s a weird sensation of ‘depth’, bordering on bitterness, but not quite there. A kind of brown, vegetal quality. I know that might SOUND bad, but think of it like…the savoriness of a pot roast or something. Bon Appetit called it “Tobacco-like”, and there’s something to that as well. A richness that implies corruption, like a dark-wood smoking room.  

Mike’s Hot Oil

Yeah, okay, it looks PRETTY different.

Texturally, closer to the XCJ than the Fly, but flavor-wise closer to the latter. I feel like it’s the hottest of the three, both in the start and finish, but that doesn’t mean it’s ONLY hot. There’s some complexity to it, a subtly different use of spices spread across all three that produce different results. Like, I believe XCJ’s uses cardamom, helping build that brightness mentioned. This one, I believe, uses star anise, creating a kind of hoisin-like hint of anise flavor.

So I think Mike’s is best for someone looking for HEAT in their mix, the XCJ is best for someone just starting out with this kind of cuisine, and the Fly By Jing is for a more complex mixture. But, you can’t just judge a sauce by how it tastes on its own. You also have to test it incorrectly by mixing it with random crap!

Taste Test 2: Shut Your Jap

CHAE. JAP-CHAE, TITLE JON. Good lord, you are in a pique today. Anywho, this is where things get…wobbly. See, as noted, the initial plan of “try a bunch of soup dumplings with sauces Wednesday” didn’t happen. But that put me in a frustrating position: the XCJ sauces are BUILT to be used with their soup dumplings. But it would be a dick move to crack open the bags of soup dumplings without the rest of my family. So instead, I had to use OTHER dumplings, which is where I discovered that we actually had a bag of frozen Japchae dumplings, almost identical to the tray I had on Saturday. Thus, a batch of japchae dumplings was cooked up, to use as a palette to taste the sauces

I am an artist, and dumplings are my canvas.

The results were:

Vinegar: On its own, that piercing sharpness punches through the dumpling. Like, I did a mediocre dab, and the result was only vinegar flavor, with a little bit of beef.

Umami: this one does the weirdest thing, where it makes the dumpling taste more like a meal. The addition of ginger, onion, and garlic just makes your brain think “ah, this is like, a bite of stir-fry, then.”

We didn’t try with the Jing stuff, as it hadn’t arrived yet.

The Hot Oil: that edge of spice was a little strong for the dumplings, in that I would push the combo into the low end of “spicy”, rather than the higher end of “normal”.

XCJ Chile Crisp: that nutty bitterness we noted earlier hit the beef in a fascinating way, kind of emphasizing the meatiness. The brightness of the mix did an interesting thing ,where it consistently made the sauce seem colder than it was, and thus it contrasted with the fresh-fried dumplings.

Mixed: After trying each on their own, I tried mixing up a batch of “vinegar and umami/vinegar and chili/vinegar, umami, chili”, and I really think the umami mixed with the others brings it back to something that my brain grasps more easily. The one caveat/warning I’ll put on is remember that the chili oil and umami sauce are oils, and the vinegar is not, so you’ll want to do some stirring/ensure your vinegar isn’t completely covered under a 2 mm layer of seasoned oils, which will change up the tastes.

Behold the scraps of dumplings.

Saucy Summation

At the end of the day, I do really like the sauces, and want to keep experimenting with them. You can get the XCJ sauces as a pack for just $20 plus shipping, and presumably, if in the Seattle area, you can go there and get them for just $20, and I think that’s a solid deal for them. They do have a tiered expiration system, where one bottle of the oil based sauces (I believe the umami) will last 3 months, another (the chili crisp?) will last 6, and the vinegar will last a year, so you can replenish as you need. They even have a subscription service, where they’ll send you dumplings every month or two months, along with sauces if you need. (Small addition on the dumplings: we did have some for Friday night dinner, and they all tasted good, though there was a bit of variation in whether a given dumpling, by the end of cooking, actually had soup: we each had 8 dumplings spread across three flavors (everyone had one flavor they only got 2 of), and 5 of mine had soup, while only 3 of Nate’s did. Which is understandable: all it takes is a frozen dumpling’s dough ‘chipping’ in transit to leave a little hole and all the soup leaks out as you cook.)

Fly by Jing are pricier (the jars are $15 a pop, and $42 for the trio), and the two oil based sauces will last about 3-4 months. Personally, I think my favorite sauce of ALL the ones we tried is the Zhong sauce. I know I didn’t explain it much, but it really is “chili crisp + sweetness”, and that really clicks for me. They’ve also got stuff for making spicy hot pot, they sell peppers and clear hot oils for finishing dishes. I think they’re definitely worth checking out.

And Mike’s hot oil runs…technically $10 a bottle, in the sense that you can only buy it in a 3 pack with the garlic chile crisp and a black-bean garlic sauce for $30. I definitely like it, and have to go check my other two bottles to see if I’d recommend them as well.

Honestly, I think they’re all worth it for ME, but that’s as someone who’s something of a sauce fiend, and I could easily understand if it’s not for you. Still, if you wanna give them a try, or check out local options near you that do the same thing, I hope this gives you some guidance into what to expect.

MONDAY: WE MAKE CHILI, BECAUSE I COULDN’T FIND A REASONABLE ALTERNATIVE.

THURSDAY: DON’T KNOW AT THE MINUTE.