No matter making a quick stir fry, roasted vegetables, a comforting casserole, or a simple salad, fresh herbs play an important role to add flavors to your dish without using more salt. However, you might not be in the mood to peel garlic or chop onions for a weekday dinner after a long busy day. Making herb infused oil ahead of time provides a perfect shortcut without compromising the flavor of your dish. Take this scallion oil as an example, when you use it to replace vegetable oil or olive oil when roasting cauliflower, it makes the vegetables much more fragrant than simply using salt and black peppers seasoning. When you mix the scallion oil with a few drops of soy sauce and sugar, it makes a flavorful noodle bowl in a few minutes. For a quick shrimp fried rice dish, using scallion oil will save you extra time to wash and chop herbs, and make your rice as flavorful as it should be.
Making scallion oil is super easy. All you need is simmering chopped green onion, shallot and oil in a pan for 40 to 60 minutes. During the cooking you only need to check the oil every few times without monitoring the pan the whole time. So, the whole process involves very little active cooking time. Once the oil is done, you will get a jar of fragrant oil that can be stored in the fridge for a few months, and a plate of crispy shallot that you can use as noodle bowl toppings.
Below are a few ways you can use this magic oil:
Replace vegetable oil (or olive oil) when roasting vegetables (roasted cauliflowers, roasted carrot). Use it in stir fried vegetables dishes, such as zucchini with black bean sauce and fried cabbage. Use it in fried rice recipes without chopping herbs (shrimp fried rice, chicken fried rice). Use it in noodle salad for quick side dish. Use it in any casserole dish to add aroma (chicken rice casserole).
This recipe is a part of my stir-fry sauce series, to demonstrate how to make Chinese sauces and herb oil ahead of time, and use them to shorten your dinner preparation time. [leadmagnet]
