I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from Holy Duck Chili Oil except that some part of it should taste like duck. I was also curious about their no-duck vegan version, but that 266 ml of chili-and-duck oil was already $20 so I figured I'd just try their original recipe first.
Just the oil was a highly flavourful concoction. The heat creeps up on you but doesn't get to a level where you're yelping for water to rescue your tongue. There's definitely duck flavour, similar to roasted duck, but also something that reminded me strongly of star anise. Depending on how much you like that latter flavour, you might find there's maybe too much of it -- I personally feel it competes too strongly with the duck oil flavour.
For additional oomph you can stir up the concoction to get at the stuff typically sunk to the bottom. This adds a pleasant crunch, but also predominantly a strong bitterness that's possibly fried garlic, and that threatens to overwhelm your experience.
Pricey? Yup. But I feel also quite versatile and it definitely has potential to stand on its own as a sauce instead of being used as merely a condiment -- for example tossed with some kind of noodle.
*
This was one of my three Mother's Day buys: My mom likes chips and chili, so for Mother's Day I looked around for some hopefully products I was reasonably certain she wouldn't be able to find at a mainstream supermarket like T&T or Superstore. I ended up at Dank Mart for chips-sold-in-other-countries and Lucifer's House of Heat for a couple of hot sauces.
I also found out that novelty costs. A lot.
Comments
Post a Comment