Make Your Own Shichimi Togarashi (Japanese 7 Spice ) and La-Yu Chilli Oil
Japanese cuisine typically centres on a careful balance of flavours provided by high-quality ingredients and umami depth but sometimes, only a kick of spice will do! For these times, Japanese people will usually reach for one of two condiments — shichimi togarashi also known as Japanese seven spice, and La-Yu chilli oil.
I use both of these regularly in my cooking classes and they are such popular condiments with guests in both my gyoza and ramen classes that I decided to start making my own! They are both simple to make and, by making them yourself, you have the added benefit of customizing your spice blend and preferred spice level.
I like to add seven spice or chilli oil to dishes such as soba noodle soup, miso soup, udon noodle soup, miso dengaku which is a delicious roasted aubergine with sweet miso, and to liven up homemade onigiri and sushi.
Both of these condiments are super useful and always looks good on the table. I always have them available in classes so just help yourself if you want a flavourful kick!
What is La-Yu chilli oil?
A very popular Japanese dipping sauce, it is a simple mix of chopped chilli pepper in sesame oil, with spring onion, and other spices. It has a slightly reddish colour and is delicious with gyoza, ramen, or other soups but it also goes well with any western foods that you want to give a slight kick to.
You can easily make a delicious dipping sauce for gyoza by mixing chilli oil with soy sauce and rice vinegar. If you would like to learn to make your own homemade gyoza don’t miss my Vegetarian Ramen and Gyoza and Gyoza 3 Ways classes.
While La-Yu can easily be bought online from Amazon, and from Asian stores like the Japan Centre, it’s also very easy to make your own. Check out the recipe below.
What is Shichimi Togarashi
Shichimi togarashi means ‘seven spices’ in Japanese and is sometimes called Nanami, as it’s easier to say. It’s a very popular condiment in Japan that you will find it in most restaurants and homes. It is usually sprinkled on top of donburi rice bowls and noodles dishes such as soba and udon but can be used on whatever you like. Although it’s used for adding spice, it still also adds some umami flavour to your dishes as it will typically include seaweed.
Shichimi togarashi has around four hundred years of history in Japan and is thought to have originated at a shop called Karashiya Tokuemon as a traditional medicine that blended chilli with six other ingredients. It’s a very popular local product in Nagano and Kyoto where you can find many artisan spice shops but it can be found all over Japan, and internationally.
Be careful, shichimi togarashi is very different to Chinese five spice which is very aromatic and includes different spices like cinnamon and aniseed; it isn’t spicy like Japanese seven spice. Shichimi togarashi will typically include yuzu, ginger, red chilli powder, seaweed, black and white sesame, as well as the perfumey Japanese cardamom called sansho.
There are many different blends of seven spice, however, and sometimes other ingredients like black pepper, poppy seeds, and different seeds are added.
It’s widely available to buy now and you can find it in Waitrose who now have their own brand version. The classic one, which you can find in the Japan Centre or on Amazon is made by S & B Company, a very common Japanese spice company. There are also many artisan options, search for the tasty Togarashi Shichimi Spice Mix avaiable via The Wasabi Company.
What is sansho pepper?
Sansho, a type of green pepper, is actually part of the citrus family! It is a special Japanese artisan ingredient with an aromatic and perfumey aroma. It is a very grown-up and sophisticated spice that truly impacts the flavour of whatever you use it with. You can really taste its fruity and sharp edge when used and can feel a slight numbing sensation similar to Sichuan pepper.
Apart from being commonly found in the seven-spice mix, and in teriyaki sauce, sansho pepper is also traditionally used with unagi eel dishes as the sharp taste cuts through the oil and grease.
The last time I went to Kyoto, I visited a famous spice shop where the owner picks the pepper by hand, carefully selecting which ones to sell. She then dries them out to use in cooking and grinds them ready to use. The smell of sansho often carries me back to that moment.
In the UK, I highly recommend ordering sansho from NamaYasai, a Japanese farm based in Sussex that grows and supplies Japanese vegetables. They also provide weekly delivery boxes within London, which I love to sign up to in the summer to enjoy their seasonal produce. Whenever I order fresh sansho, I always freeze it so it will keep for the rest of the year.
My own blend of shichimi togarashi
We talked about the traditional blend of Japanese seven-spice above and the variations that are common in Japan but this is how I came to create my own.
I last visited Japan in 2019 and visited Nagoya prefecture while I was there as its close to where my mum lives. We visited the beautiful Senkō-ji temple in Nagoya and the area around the temple which is like a mini Kyoto old town that many people go to visit.
There are a lot of old artisan craft shops in the area including the artisan spice shop Yawataya Isogoro who are famous for their shichimi. Apart from buying their traditional blend, you can also make your own customized blends of shichimi togarashi — while I was there I created yuki-shimi and brought that recipe back home to share with you.
My blend includes hemp seeds for a nutty flavour, aonori powder seaweed which has more flavour than typical nori and is greener, yuzu peel (which I get from the wasabi company and make my own zest but you can also use satsuma or orange peel), black and white sesame seeds, and ichimi red pepper spice. I love serving it with my vegan ramen.
Here’s how to make my Japanese seven spice blend and La Yu chilli oil.
Japanese Seven Spice (Shichimi Togarashi) & La-Yu Chilli Oil
Ingredients
- 2tsp Ichimi Togarashi or dried red chilli
- 1tsp Hemp seeds
- 2tsp Dried satsuma skin or yuzu peel powder
- 1tsp Black sesame seeds
- 1tsp Roasted white sesame seeds
- 1tsp Aonori
- ½ tsp Sansho
- 1tbs Seven spice
- 100ml Sunflower or rapeseed oil
- 2tsp Toasted sesame oil
Method
- To dry the satsuma peel, put it in the oven at 95 deg C for 30-40 minutes. Once done it should be dried, curled and crispy.
- Remove it from the oven and use a spice grinder to grind it into a fine powder. The skin from a single satsuma will normally make around 2-3 teaspoons of dried powder.
- At the same time, grind the hemp seeds and the dried chilli into a powder.
- In a small container (a small glass jar works well) mix the powders together with all the remaining ingredients.
- Your Shichimi Togarashi is ready for use.
- Simply add all the ingredients into a bottle or jar and leave them to infuse for a few days.
- If you just can't wait or are short on time, then gently heat up the oil and spices to infuse them. Use once cool.
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