Schezwan Sauce is a special spicy sauce used in Schezwan recipes like Schezwan Fried Rice, Noodles etc.
Schezwan / Sichuan / Szechuan is a style of Chinese cuisine originating from Sichuan province in southwestern China.Schezwan Sauce has bold flavours,especially the pungency and spiciness resulting from liberal use of garlic and chillies[Source : Wikipedia]
I have seen Chings Schezwan sauce but I wanted to try it homemade....But I am seriously not a fan of spicy food so was hesitant to try schezwan recipes but made up my mind to make this sauce atleast to post it here.
Though I am not fond of spicy food, I love schezwan flavour very much so tried this sauce yesterday and stored it.I made schezwan noodles today and we enjoyed it for breakfast...It was fiery hot but still can enjoy it once in a while :)
Schezwan Sauce Recipe - Ingredients
Preparation Time : 15 mins | Cooking Time : 10 mins | Makes : 1/2 cup
Recipe Category: Homemade Sauce | Recipe Cuisine: Indo Chinese
Recipe Category: Homemade Sauce | Recipe Cuisine: Indo Chinese
Dry Red Chillies - 30
Garlic - 15 small sized chopped finely
Ginger - 1 tsp finely chopped
Soya Sauce - little less than 1/4 tsp
Vinegar - 1 tsp
Pepper Powder - 1 tsp
Tomato Sauce - 1 tbsp
Cooking Oil - 3 tbsp
Salt - to taste
Method:
- Remove the stem part of red chillies, cut open and remove the seeds and soak them in hot water.Deseeding is optional, but chose to remove them to reduce the spicyness a bit.Soak red chillies atleast for 30mins with water till immersing level.Then drain red chillies and transfer it to a mixer.Add the drained water to the mixer.
- Grind it to a fine paste.Add water little by little and keep grinding till you get a smooth paste,Set aside.Fine chop garlic and ginger.Heat oil in a pan - add chopped ginger and garlic and fry for 2mins without changing the color.
- Then add red chilli paste and let it boil in low flame for 3-5mins till oil starts leaving.Then add soya sauce.
- Then add vinegar,tomato sauce,pepper powder and required salt and cook for 5mins in low flame.Switch off.
My Notes:
- Adding more oil is mandatory, the oil should float on top as a layer .This increases the shelf life of the sauce.
- You can skip tomato sauce and add sugar instead.
- Cook till oil separates and starts to leave the sides of the pan.
- You can even add the red chillies with seeds but I prefer to remove it to reduce the spiciness.
- If you get kashmiri red chillies then use a mix of both normal and kashmiri red chillies.
- Adding onion,spring onion is optional in the sauce is optional.I didn't add it while making sauce and chose to add it while making schezwan recipes.
- You can even add a tbsp of chopped celery if you get it.
- If you use kashmiri red chillies it is okay to add it as such without removing the seeds as they are less spicy. I use normal red chillies so to reduce the hotness I removed the seeds.
- You can use this sauce as a condiment for snacks or use it for schezwan recipes like fried rice,noodles etc.
- The sauce should stay good atleast for 3-4 weeks if refrigerated. I will update it here after checking the shelf life of my homemade sauce.
- Sichuan pepper is a special ingredient used in this sauce for unique flavour but I couldn't get it so skipped that alone.
