Get the latest Hunan recipes from Group Recipes. http://www.grouprecipes.com/tag/hunan Adapted from Dunlop's Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. The name alone is worth making it. http://www.grouprecipes.com/31994/sounding-radish-xiang-luo-bu-si.html For those of you who like western Chinese, I plan to put together a tip sheet on what different products are, where to find them, and which ones you do and do not need. Until then, however, here are a couple of recipes, one for chili oil, the other for salted chilis. Chili oil you can buy in most supermarkets these days, but it's strained, and ridiculously expensive, and as easy as it is to make your own, there's no reason to waste your money. You can find unstrained chili oil at any Asian market (usually as homestyle chili oil), but it's still more expensive than it should be. You won't find salted chilis, even at the Asian market. They're used primarily in Hunan, and one of those things you make at home. Since both are, well, just chilis, you can use either to make something non-Chinese hotter. For both, you need some kind of glass container with a tight-fitting lid. There is no need to refrigerate either of these. http://www.grouprecipes.com/26725/chili-oilsalted-chilis.html This is an adaptation of Ji Si Chao Fen, from Fuschia Dunlop's Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. Fen are rice noodles; mian (or mein) are wheat noodles. I prefer the latter. Dunlops's recipe calls for salted chilis. Good luck finding those (they're simple to make at home, which may be why they're hard to find at the Asian market). I substituted chiles and hong duo jiao, a Hunan chili condiment that's easily found at your local Asian market. These appear to be harmless, but they're not. They're quite, quite, quite picante. http://www.grouprecipes.com/20867/ji-si-chao-mian-hunan.html