Homemade Szechwan Sauce

Sichuan sauce / Szechwan sauce, is super spicy sauce which is originating from Sichuan province in southwestern China. It has bold flavours, particularly the pungency and spiciness resulting from liberal use of garlic and chili peppers, as well as the unique flavor of the Sichuan pepper (source:wiki). I could not find Szechwan pepper here, so I used normal dry red chilli. You can make many recipes using this sauce like Szechwan rice, Szechwan noodles, etc.. This sauce will stay good upto a month if you store and use it properly.

Wash and soak dry red chili with enough amount of water for about 30 mins to 1 hour.

Finely chopped the garlic and ginger. Set aside.

After the soaking time, drain the water and reserve that water for grinding the chili.

Take those soaked chili in a blender, add a tbsp of water and blend them to smooth paste. Add water little by little if necessary.

Heat oil in a pan over medium flame, add garlic and ginger, saute for about 2 minutes. Make sure that you don't burnt the garlic.

Now add the chili paste into it and saute for 5 minutes. By that time, the oil will oozes out to the side of the pan.

Add vinegar, soy sauce, tomato sauce, chilli powder, salt and mix all well, cook for couple of minutes and switch off the flame.

Let the sauce completely cool for sometimes.

Once it cooled down, transfer it to air tight container, add 2 tbsp of oil and store it in refrigerator. It will stay good up to a month. Always use dry and clean spoon in order to avoid get spoil.

Use this sauce for noodles , rice or stir fry.. Happy cooking :-)