"Rona Y" > wrote:
> At the risk of sounding like the food police, I've read many things
> about flavoured oils (with the flavouring element stored in the oil)
> being prime sources for botulinum or some other kind of bacterium. I
> see a lot of chile oil, though--both in Asian and Italian restaurants
> (my favourite Italian restaurant has chile oil ready for me whenever I
> go for pizza). Is there something about the chiles that prevents
> whatever bacteria from growing?
>
> Dinner tonight: fake-Cantonese chow mein with chicken and some kind of
> leafy green vegetable (long thin stems, huge dark green leaves). Not
> bad, but I used a bit too much oyster sauce, and possibly a bit too
> much fish sauce in it. I say "fake", by the way, because I have no
> clue as to how to make Cantonese chow mein, but I make it the way my
> dad used to make it.

Utsakushi-o, I've been using hot oil like that for years and I'm not dead
yet! I just checked my current batch. It's half chiles. Even the chile
infused vinegar lasts forever (although that I do refrigerate).

From your description, I can't visualize the veggie. Was it bitter or mild?
Maybe you could post a pic on alt.binaries.food. Oyster sauce is great, but
can easily overpower a dish. Fish sauce is easy to overdo. Better too
little than too much. You can add more at the table (a small bowl of fish
sauce with minced chile), but it's hard to remove when excessive.

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