How to make fried pepper oil

Generally, our families fry pepper oil for consumption. The unique flavor of Sichuan pepper oil is also loved by many people. In fact, we can see a lot of finished pepper oils on the market. The peppercorns in these pepper oils are richer in flavor than those we make ourselves. Generally speaking, we cannot squeeze out peppercorn oil by ourselves, but we can fry the peppercorn oil ourselves. So, how to do it?

Ingredients: 150g Sichuan pepper, 50g ginger, 50g garlic, 100g scallion, 5g star anise, 1500g salad oil

Preparation method:

1. Peel and smash the ginger; cut the garlic into fingernail pieces; smash the scallion.

2. Place the wok on the fire, add salad oil and heat it to 50% to 60% hot, add ginger, garlic, and scallion and fry until fragrant, then add pepper and star anise and stir-fry until fragrant. Remove from the heat, let it cool, remove the residue, pour the oil into a container, and you can use it at any time.

Features: The oil is clear and the taste is spicy and fragrant.

Scope of application: stir-fried and mixed cold dishes and fried and roasted hot dishes, such as "warm mixed shredded pork waist", "stir-fried shredded potatoes", "fried pork waist", "spicy tofu", etc.

The so-called pepper oil is completely different from pepper seed oil and pepper essential oil. The oil extracted from pepper seeds by pressing or solvent extraction is called pepper seed oil, which is further refined to become edible pepper seed oil. Sichuan pepper essential oil is produced by organic solvent extraction or supercritical extraction of Sichuan pepper. It is generally not edible directly and needs to be diluted with edible vegetable oil in an appropriate proportion to become Sichuan pepper oil before it can be used as a seasoning oil. There are mainly the following methods to prepare pepper oil:

1. Oil dissolution method, oil immersion method, oil spray method

Oil dissolution method, oil immersion method and oil pouring method are traditional methods for producing pepper oil, and are used by most domestic pepper oil factories. The method is: put the peppercorns directly into hot edible vegetable oil and seal it with a cover, or put the peppercorns into a container with a hole diameter smaller than the diameter of the peppercorns, slowly pour hot edible vegetable oil into the container, fry out its aroma, and dissolve the effective ingredients in the oil to obtain peppercorn oil.

The above method has great limitations, mainly because the oil temperature is difficult to control. If the temperature is too high, the aroma and numbing components in the peppercorns will easily evaporate, decompose and be lost. If the oil temperature is too low, the water is not easy to separate, which can easily lead to oil rancidity. In addition, the effective ingredients cannot be fully dissolved, and only a part of them enters the oil, resulting in waste and high product costs, and lack of market competitiveness. Secondly, there are disadvantages such as low production efficiency, high labor intensity and poor sanitary conditions.

2. Solvent extraction method

Petroleum ether with a boiling point of 60-70°C is used as a solvent, and the peppercorns are repeatedly extracted to obtain peppercorn essential oil, which is then heated and mixed with edible vegetable oil to obtain peppercorn oil. This method also has its drawbacks. One is that the residual solvent problem causes the product aroma to be impure. Second, the volatilization of the solvent during the heating process will invisibly increase the product cost and cause a certain degree of pollution to the atmospheric environment.

3. Supercritical CO2 extraction

The effective ingredients in Sichuan pepper are extracted using liquid CO2 to produce Sichuan pepper essential oil, which is then mixed with edible vegetable oil. This method is relatively advanced and the pepper oil produced is of better quality, but it has the following defects: First, during the pepper picking season, the amount of fresh pepper that can be processed per day using this method is limited. The method has a temperature of 35-40°C, a long extraction time, and a small daily processing volume. Therefore, this method is not suitable for large-scale production during the pepper harvest season. Secondly, when this method is used to extract fresh peppercorns, the peppercorn peel and the peppercorn seeds need to be crushed or flaked. Because the oil contained in the peppercorn seeds has a high acid value and a bitter taste, it is easy to cause the acid value of the product to increase and the flavor to change. Third, its production conditions and corresponding labor protection measures are strict and require expensive and specialized equipment, so this method is limited in application.

4. Pressing method

It is divided into hot pressing and modified cold pressing. The hot pressing method easily leads to a large loss of aromatic and flavor substances in Sichuan pepper. At present, domestic manufacturers have used a patented technology similar to the physical cold pressing method to produce pepper oil.

In addition, there are distillation and boiling methods to make pepper oil, but they have been eliminated.

Due to the different origins, picking times and production processes of Sichuan pepper, there are differences in the acid value, volatile matter, color and other indicators of Sichuan pepper oil.