Zao chili is Guizhou's signature fermented chopped-chili paste, the pantry staple at the heart of the province's cooking. Fresh red chilies are chopped fine together with garlic and ginger, salted, splashed with a little baijiu, then sealed in a glazed crock to ferment sour over two to three weeks. The result is brick-red, juicy and coarse, both sour and hot, with a clean fermented tang quite unlike the dry heat of dried chili. It seasons countless Guizhou dishes — from zaola fish and stir-fried meats to a spoonful stirred straight into rice — and a Guizhou kitchen is rarely without a jar.
Zao chili belongs to Guizhou, where a cool damp climate, salt that was historically scarce and dear, and a fondness for sourness combined to make fermented and pickled chilies the local way of keeping a glut of fresh chili through the year. The chili reached Guizhou by the late Ming and into the Qing, and the province is often cited as the first place in China to eat chili as a food rather than an ornament — the early-Qing gazetteer-era record that Guizhou people "used chili in place of salt" is the line most often quoted for this. From that pinch-hitting-for-salt habit grew a whole family of Guizhou chili preparations, of which the wet, sour, salt-brined zao chili is the everyday base; its exact date of origin is not documented. The name 糟 (zao) marks it as a lees-style fermented pickle.
Brick-red and glistening, coarse but juicy, with visible flecks of garlic and ginger through the minced chili. The first taste is a bright, clean sourness from the fermentation, then a steady warm heat that builds without the harsh scorch of dried chili; salt holds it all together and a faint sweetness rounds the back. It smells lively and fresh-pickled, the chili-sour cut with garlic, nothing musty about it. A little stirred into a hot wok blooms into a fragrant, sour-spicy oil that perfumes a whole dish.
Zao chili is a lactic-acid ferment, the same family as sauerkraut and kimchi. Salt draws moisture from the chopped chili and suppresses spoilage microbes while letting salt-tolerant lactic-acid bacteria thrive; in the oxygen-poor sealed crock they convert the chili's sugars into lactic acid, which is the source of that clean sour taste and which further preserves the paste. The splash of baijiu and the strict no-raw-water, no-oil rule keep stray yeasts and molds from souring it the wrong way or growing a scum — any oil or unboiled water on the chili or the jar is the usual cause of a spoiled batch. Cool storage slows the ferment so the flavor deepens steadily; a well-kept crock holds for a year or more, sour and red, and many cooks keep an old batch going as a starter.
Variations
The constant is fresh red chili fermented sour with salt; the variables are heat, the aromatics and the grind. Cooks adjust the chili to taste — milder erjingtiao-type chilies for fragrance, hotter local 'xiaomila' for bite — and many add chopped garlic and young ginger, while some keep it plainer. The chili may be chopped by hand with a cleaver for a coarse, juicy texture or run through a mincer for a finer paste; a little baijiu, and sometimes brown sugar, is standard. A close Guizhou relative is yindu chili (印度椒) and the whole-pickled 'glass' chilies, while across the border in Hunan and Sichuan the wetter duojiao (chopped salted chili) is made the same way but used more for steaming fish heads; Guizhou's zao chili leans more sour and is treated as an all-purpose cooking base.
On the Palate
Where Zao Chili sits in the Chinese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 20How it's made
6 steps · 1 hour
- 110 min
Choose firm, fresh red chilies; rinse and spread them out to dry completely, leaving no raw water on the skins.
Watch outSpread the chilies out until bone-dry with no raw water on the skins — a drop of unboiled water is the usual cause of a spoiled, scummy batch.
- 220 min
Trim off the stalks and chop the chilies fine with a cleaver (or pulse in a food processor), along with peeled garlic and young ginger.
- 38 min
Mix the chopped chili, garlic and ginger with salt until evenly combined, then stir in a splash of baijiu (and a little brown sugar if liked).
- 45 min
Pack the mixture firmly into a clean, dry glazed crock, leaving some headroom, and press out air pockets.
Watch outPack the crock firmly and press out the air pockets — the ferment needs an oxygen-poor seal so lactic-acid bacteria take over instead of mold; trapped air invites spoilage.
- 52 min
Seal the crock with its water-trough lid (or otherwise airtight) and keep it in a cool, shaded spot to ferment.
- 61 min
Leave to ferment two to three weeks until it tastes pleasantly sour; thereafter always use a clean, dry, oil-free spoon to take some out.
