Ingredients: Red Chili, Garlic, Onion, Palm Oil, No Preservative
Dragonfly Brand is a Thai food products company with a huge array of different products. They make not only Thai ingredients and snacks including soy sauces, shrimp chips, corn snacks, and more but also Korean sauces and instant noodles plus pantry staples popular throughout Asian such as rice, tamarind paste, dried sausages, and more. It’s their chili oil however which has captured the attention of chile heads craving an actually spicy chili crisp. After having tried several others I felt it was finally time to try this one.
As compared to Chinese style chili crisps the Dragonfly Brand Super Hot Chili Oil has a simple and paired-down ingredients list. Known as Prik Nam Mun in Thailand it’s typically made of just Thai chili flakes, garlic, and shallots or onions with hot oil poured over them. Sometimes Thai seasoning sauce such as Golden Mountain, a soy sauce like product that also includes added MSG and other umami enhancers, is also added. In this case Dragonfly decided to go all natural with only chilis, onion, garlic, and oil. The oil they choice to go with is palm oil which has two interesting effects. On the positive side palm oil is particularly viscous which is good for a chili oil. In China the authentic oil of choice for chili crisp is called Caiziyou which is a cold-pressed unfiltered rapeseed oil that’s much thicker and with more body and flavor than western Canola oil which comes from the same plant but which is highly processed. That extra body from Caiziyou and palm oil means that the chili oils coat noodles and rice much more effectively – think how much more difficult it is to get motor oil off of your hands compared to olive for for example. The other less desirably effect is that palm oil solidifies much more readily than other oils and this turns as hard as a rock when refrigerated and takes quite some time to loosen back up. Visually the oil is deep red and this has lots of crunchy chili bits inside. The aroma is of chilis with some hints of the garlic and onion.
When I open new bottle of chili crisp (or hot sauce for that matter) the first thing I like to do is take a nice spoonful of it to taste it straight and get the full effect of its flavor. With Lao Gan Ma I got that rich umami flavor that reminded me a lot of Thanksgiving, but very little in the way of heat. With Chuan Lao Hui I got brightness and all of the aromatics they use creating a floral complex flavor plus a good bit of numbing from the Sichuan peppercorns. When I took a big spoon of Dragonfly Super Hot Chili Oil I nearly coughed up a lung and spent the next ten minutes chugging iced tea. This isn’t just many steps hotter than any other chili oil I’ve tried, it’s orders of magnitude hotter. The only hot sauces I’ve had that provoked similar reactions for me were Primo’s Peppers Swampadelic and Torchbearer’s The Rapture. This isn’t just hot for a chili crisp, it legitimately hangs with hot sauces made from super hot peppers. In terms of actual flavor while this doesn’t have the big umami punch of Lao Gan Ma or the numbing Sichuan flavors of Chuan Lao Hui it does have bright yet toasty Thai chile flavor. The onion and garlic aren’t as apparent eating it straight but they to come out big when its combined with food.
One of my favorite Cantonese dishes is wonton noodle soup, especially with nice shrimp filled dumplings. Luckily there’s a great Hong Kong style Chinese restaurant near me that makes a great version of it, though sometimes I like it kicked up a bit. Putting in just a dab of Dragonfly Super Hot Chili Oil transformed it and added the perfect amount of heat to where I could feel the burn without covering up the natural flavors of the dish, and the onion and garlic helped accentuate the flavor of the noodles and dumplings. I also liked adding a dab of this to some homemade yakisoba that I made, the garlic and onion being natural companions to the sweet soy sauce and the added heat being a great companion to the natural umami of the dish. This is also excellent with Thai food of course, and I added a bit to some Panang curry and the heat and brightness helped cut through the richness of the dish and added an extra dimension of flavor.
Dragonfly Super Hot Chili Oil gets my full recommendation. If you’ve been looking for a hot chili oil or chili crisp that’s actually hot this is the one for you. This is also great because it doesn’t have any of the Chinese aromatics such as five spice powder, star anise, or cinnamon so it’s more flexible across a range of dishes without bringing that licoricey flavor that those can have. This chili oil is also all natural with no artificial preservatives, flavors, colors, or thickeners.
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Bitter: 🟡🟡🟡○○
Salty: ○○○○○
Sour/Tangy:🟡○○○○
Sweet: 🟡○○○○
Umami: 🟡○○○○
Heat: 🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡○
Quick Flavor Notes: Bright, roasty, garlic, onion
Recommended: Yes
Texture: Thick oil with lots of crunchy chilis
Ingredients: Red Chili, Garlic, Onion, Palm Oil, No Preservative
Dragonfly Brand is a Thai food products company with a huge array of different products. They make not only Thai ingredients and snacks including soy sauces, shrimp chips, corn snacks, and more but also Korean sauces and instant noodles plus pantry staples popular throughout Asian such as rice, tamarind paste, dried sausages, and more. It’s their chili oil however which has captured the attention of chile heads craving an actually spicy chili crisp. After having tried several others I felt it was finally time to try this one.
As compared to Chinese style chili crisps the Dragonfly Brand Super Hot Chili Oil has a simple and paired-down ingredients list. Known as Prik Nam Mun in Thailand it’s typically made of just Thai chili flakes, garlic, and shallots or onions with hot oil poured over them. Sometimes Thai seasoning sauce such as Golden Mountain, a soy sauce like product that also includes added MSG and other umami enhancers, is also added. In this case Dragonfly decided to go all natural with only chilis, onion, garlic, and oil. The oil they choice to go with is palm oil which has two interesting effects. On the positive side palm oil is particularly viscous which is good for a chili oil. In China the authentic oil of choice for chili crisp is called Caiziyou which is a cold-pressed unfiltered rapeseed oil that’s much thicker and with more body and flavor than western Canola oil which comes from the same plant but which is highly processed. That extra body from Caiziyou and palm oil means that the chili oils coat noodles and rice much more effectively – think how much more difficult it is to get motor oil off of your hands compared to olive for for example. The other less desirably effect is that palm oil solidifies much more readily than other oils and this turns as hard as a rock when refrigerated and takes quite some time to loosen back up. Visually the oil is deep red and this has lots of crunchy chili bits inside. The aroma is of chilis with some hints of the garlic and onion.
When I open new bottle of chili crisp (or hot sauce for that matter) the first thing I like to do is take a nice spoonful of it to taste it straight and get the full effect of its flavor. With Lao Gan Ma I got that rich umami flavor that reminded me a lot of Thanksgiving, but very little in the way of heat. With Chuan Lao Hui I got brightness and all of the aromatics they use creating a floral complex flavor plus a good bit of numbing from the Sichuan peppercorns. When I took a big spoon of Dragonfly Super Hot Chili Oil I nearly coughed up a lung and spent the next ten minutes chugging iced tea. This isn’t just many steps hotter than any other chili oil I’ve tried, it’s orders of magnitude hotter. The only hot sauces I’ve had that provoked similar reactions for me were Primo’s Peppers Swampadelic and Torchbearer’s The Rapture. This isn’t just hot for a chili crisp, it legitimately hangs with hot sauces made from super hot peppers. In terms of actual flavor while this doesn’t have the big umami punch of Lao Gan Ma or the numbing Sichuan flavors of Chuan Lao Hui it does have bright yet toasty Thai chile flavor. The onion and garlic aren’t as apparent eating it straight but they to come out big when its combined with food.
One of my favorite Cantonese dishes is wonton noodle soup, especially with nice shrimp filled dumplings. Luckily there’s a great Hong Kong style Chinese restaurant near me that makes a great version of it, though sometimes I like it kicked up a bit. Putting in just a dab of Dragonfly Super Hot Chili Oil transformed it and added the perfect amount of heat to where I could feel the burn without covering up the natural flavors of the dish, and the onion and garlic helped accentuate the flavor of the noodles and dumplings. I also liked adding a dab of this to some homemade yakisoba that I made, the garlic and onion being natural companions to the sweet soy sauce and the added heat being a great companion to the natural umami of the dish. This is also excellent with Thai food of course, and I added a bit to some Panang curry and the heat and brightness helped cut through the richness of the dish and added an extra dimension of flavor.
Dragonfly Super Hot Chili Oil gets my full recommendation. If you’ve been looking for a hot chili oil or chili crisp that’s actually hot this is the one for you. This is also great because it doesn’t have any of the Chinese aromatics such as five spice powder, star anise, or cinnamon so it’s more flexible across a range of dishes without bringing that licoricey flavor that those can have. This chili oil is also all natural with no artificial preservatives, flavors, colors, or thickeners.