XO CHILLI SAUCE, BUT FRESHER.

A lighter, easier take on Hong Kong’s fabulous umami-rich sauce.

You may be familiar with the story of XO sauce, and how it is a product of the great Cantonese restaurants of Hong Kong and their endless search for the new and the delicious using high-status ingredients.

Named in honour of the top-shelf XO cognac – although it doesn’t contain cognac, it’s the XO quality signifier that’s important here – it’s a gorgeous, umami-rich relish/sauce/condiment/paste.

Most of us know it as the partner-in-crime to clams, pippies and shellfish, but it has multiple uses outside of that. I could easily mount a case for putting XO sauce on top of almost everything.

Mine is a non-traditional recipe, however, because most recipes call for a lot of oil, a lot of deep-frying, and for making 3 kilograms of the stuff in one go. No, thank you very much. I’ve reduced the oil, pan-fry instead of deep-fry, and cut the quantity.

And while I do love it when it’s searingly hot, I then have to eat less of it, whereas I really want that flavour all through and around my noodles, clams, vegetables, chicken, etc. So I’ve lightened that off as well. Oh, and I don’t have the requisite luxury ingredients of dried scallops, or dried Jinhua ham, so I’ve worked out how to make it fabulous with easy-to-find substitutes.

Part of me still wants to make 3 kg of it, of course. But every time I think, ‘oh goody, I’ll make a huge jar of this stuff and live on it for three months’, it either goes off before I can get back to it, or I forget it’s there and it goes off anyway, and I have to throw the whole thing out.

But what I have here still captures the spirit of the thing, and it is DIVINE. Foxy and fragrant and flossy and full of flavour.

Nor is it arduous, unless you consider soaking a few dried shrimps, then chucking a few things in the blender and standing by the frypan for 15 minutes arduous. Here’s what you’re looking for when blending:

Instead of using expensive dried scallops, I based my recipe on dried shrimps and crisp-fried shallots, the sort you buy in an Asian food store. Already, you’re winning in the flavour stakes.

As a substitute for dried Chinese ham, I use streaky bacon, but you could use prosciutto or pancetta.

Last week, I even used chorizo in the sauce, which was weird but actually worked, because I then threw the rest of the chorizo in with the clams and XO sauce and served over rice. And it was good.

If you don’t want ham or bacon in it at all, then drop it. This stuff has flavour to burn and will be amazing, regardless.

The rest is just fresh garlic and ginger and chilli, finished at the end with a touch of sugar and sea salt.

The chilli component can vary wildly depending on what you have, and on your mood. If you have dried chillies, soak them alongside the dried shrimp, then drain and blend to smithereens at the same time. If you have an incredible chilli powder that you love, use that instead, or as well. I’ve done this with fresh chilli, because, again, my leaning is towards keeping it fresh.

Just don’t go thinking that this XO sauce is runny and oily, like a sambal. It ends up more like a Thai curry paste; a collection of amazing things that absorb the oil as they cook and develop their own deep, dark flavours. And like a curry paste, it’s the start of many beautiful things.

XO CHILLI SAUCE

• 25 g dried shrimp (look for nice pink ones)

• 25 g crisp-fried shallots (the bought Asian variety)

• 25 g bacon, prosciutto or jamon, coarsely chopped

• 25 g garlic cloves, peeled and coarsely chopped

• 25 g ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped

• 25 g fresh red chilli, coarsely chopped

• 1 tbsp brown sugar

• 1 tsp sea salt

• 4 tbsp vegetable oil

Cover the dried shrimp with boiling water and leave to soak for an hour.

Drain the shrimp (but save the soaking water for use in cooking later, maybe) and dry it off in a scrunch of paper towel.

Whiz the dried shrimp with the fried shallots, bacon, garlic, ginger, chilli until fluffy.

Heat the oil in a frypan, add the mixture and cook over low heat, stirring continuously, for about 10 minutes until it suddenly smells amazing. It will soak up the oil quickly, but just keep it moving and let it keep cooking.

Add sugar and salt and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring.

Cool and transfer to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

Store in the refrigerator for up to a week. Makes a Chinese bowl’s worth.

SERVE WITH stir-fried clams or pippies, wok-fried broccolini, steamed scallops, or any seafood or fish, really. Bloody brilliant with fried eggs, Asian omelettes and scram.

XO SAUCE WITH NOODLES

Get your noodles sauced and ready, then toss with XO and spring onions.

• Your choice of noodles

• 1 tbsp oyster sauce

• 1 tbsp dark soy

• 1 tbsp Chinese black vinegar or rice vinegar

• 2 tsp vegetable oil

• 2 tbsp XO sauce

• lots of spring onion greens, sliced

Cook your noodles, and drain.

Mix the oyster sauce, soy and black vinegar together.

Heat vegetable oil in a wok or frypan, add the noodles and toss until hot.

Add the mixed sauces, and toss well to coat the noodles.

Add the XO and half the spring onions, toss well and serve with remaining springies.

This is great served with seared salmon on top, ready to break up throughout the noodles - like this:

If you like a saucier sauce, add

• 100 ml stock or the dried shrimp soaking water (or clam juices, etc)

Then thicken with a cornflour slurry

• 1 tsp cornflour

• 1 tbsp dried shrimp soaking water or Chinese rice wine

Add that to the mix and toss well, allowing enough heat to help the cornflour thicken the sauce, thn toss with the XO and spring onions and serve.

Thanks for dropping by! And thanks for your comments and suggestions. Special thanks to Terry for taking enough time off doing his new blog, Terry Durack Eats, to help me with shopping and chopping. Appreciate it. (Nice bit of cross-promotion there, JD).

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I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waters upon which I work, live, cook and play; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. Thank you for sharing your culture, traditions, knowledge, spirit, art, music, humour and food traditions, allowing us all to experience a greater sense of belonging in this ancient land.