Throwing everything into a pan with the oil and heating it is the classic infusion method, but isn’t the best in this case – by the time your onions and garlic are crisp, the other aromatics will have burnt. In Bristol, Edna’s Kitchen does a terrific zhoug, while Waitrose sells a version in its Cooks’ Ingredients range. Crispy chilli oil’s lip-tingling heat, addictive savouriness and endless variations (you can get it containing everything from peanuts and black beans to tofu and dried shrimp) provide an instant hit of flavour that almost smacks you around the face. Gives a big flavour boost to any broth or warm tomato sauce,” says Lowe of Japan Centre’s white miso.

This exhilarating Yemeni green chilli and garlic sauce, verdant with parsley and coriander, lifts any salad, sabich (roasted aubergine) or falafel pitta. The brand is also ubiquitous, spawning Lao Gan Ma phone cases, clothing, pencil cases and the joke, according to state-owned financial news organisation Yicai China, that when a man gets married, it is to two women: his fiancee and Tao Huabi. She spent her childhood hungry, and survived the Great Chinese Famine by eating plant roots, according to a biography in What’s On Weibo.While they’re certainly not traditional, dried Mexican chillies are the easiest way to provide depth.

You probably fall into the Hellmann’s or kewpie camp, eschewing any other mayo as inferior; a pale imitation of the one true emulsified egg, vinegar and oil king. Tao’s look and godmotherliness, she suspects, also satisfy a nostalgia for socialist China and a “simpler time”. We’ve also developed several recipes that use it (scroll down to the bottom of this post for links).But, says James Chant, the owner of the ramen-kit makers Matsudai in Cardiff: “It’s also phenomenal on chips and eggs, or in butter to finish seafood or chicken. I can then tweak the amount of heat with regular chilli flakes (in my case, plenty) and add other chillies if I want to layer the hot flavours further. Bakare’s Brixton restaurant, Chishuru, makes its own shito, but the Ghana Best brand is available at Tesco and Asda.

In 1996, she set a factory up in a house in Guiyang, and a year later Lao Gan Ma Special Flavour Foodstuffs Company was born.Lao Gan Ma’s “kitschy communist” branding “isn’t really new China, even though of course, the story is new China”, Brown said. In Malaysia, sambal is an ingredient and condiment on every table, every meal time,” says Mandy Yin, the owner of Sambal Shiok Laksa Bar in London, which sells its own sambals.

Huge in China, Lao Gan Man’s crispy chilli oils also have a passionate following among western food geeks. Caramelised onions with grilled meat is another level,” says Bakare, who energises Chishuru’s yassa with Cameroonian white penja pepper. When you’re barely allowed out of your home, let alone your neighbourhood, you have to mix things up whenever you can. The vegetables are smoked before fermenting and it’s addictive,” says Luke French, the chef-owner at Jöro in Sheffield.

In 2021, as people looked for a way to make their home-cooked meals more exciting during pandemic lockdowns in the UK, online retailer Sous Chef said Lao Gan Ma sales were up 1,900%. But, observes Alex Rushmer, the chef-owner at Vanderlyle in Cambridge, they also add “zip to carrots and other root vegetables”.