Smashed Chilies with Century Eggs (擂辣椒)

Smashed Chilies with Century Eggs, or léi làjiāo (擂辣椒) is a Hunan dish with strong, spicy flavors. I’ve enjoyed it at Hunan restaurants in China as an appetizer, and it left a lasting impression! With so many peppers coming out of our garden right now, I knew it was time to make this dish. 

Why SmashED Peppers

The word “擂”, léi, means to smash, or pound something. This dish is made with a mortar and pestle, and the ingredients are mashed together until the flavors meld, and you get something more delicious than the sum of its parts. Not to mention, it’s also a fun dish to make! 

There’s something about “smashing” vegetables that just makes them taste better. Like our popular Smashed Asian Cucumber Salad, it opens up plenty of nooks and crannies for sauce and seasonings to penetrate. It also gives the food a unique and pleasant texture as you chew. 

Sometimes this dish is also made with steamed or roasted eggplant, another vegetable that tastes delicious when mashed, so you can add that to the recipe as well if desired. But since we’ve got so many peppers on hand, I made this version just with peppers and saved our garden eggplant for dishes like Eggplant with Garlic Sauce. 

Another Hunan Recipe

While over the years, we’ve explored many of China’s 8 great cuisines as well as the ones in between, we still have only just scratched the surface of Hunan cuisine. 

Some recipes you might recognize are Hunan Beef and Hunan Steamed Fish with Salted Chillies – Duo Jiao Yu, one of our favorites that we go back to again and again (so much so that we even made a plant-based version with mushrooms!). But this smashed pepper recipe is one of my new favorites! 

Choosing Peppers

This dish is most often made with long hot green peppers, which can be a Russian roulette of spice. You never know when you’re gonna get your socks knocked off. 

The peppers we’re using look like miniature versions but are consistently mild; they’re called fushimi peppers. Don’t limit yourself—use what’s available to you and/or what you prefer eating! 

Also, it is best to char the peppers over open hot coals, but that can be pretty inconvenient, so the next best option is an open flame over the stovetop. You could also dry fry the chilies in your wok, charring the skin as we do in our recipe for Tiger Skin Peppers. 

Recipe Instructions

Wash the peppers, shake off excess water, and pat dry. If your chilies are very spicy, it’s a good idea to remove some seeds before charring.

Put a metal rack over your stove grate (I just used the rack from my toaster oven!), and turn the heat on at medium-high. Char the peppers in batches over the open flame until the skin is just charred and wrinkly, turning often. Avoid overcooking them. The main goal is to char the skin. 

Let sit at room temperature until cool enough to handle.

For this next step, you can wear food grade gloves if your chilies are very spicy. Peel off the pepper skin. You can leave a little behind for a little extra charred flavor or get rid of it entirely. 

With a mortar and pestle, smash the raw garlic.

Then add the roasted peppers along with the light soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and sugar. Continue mashing until well-combined. 

Peel and cut century eggs into smaller pieces using a knife (or clean cotton thread or unwaxed dental floss).

Add them to the mortar, and mix them in with the peppers. Salt to taste, and use a rubber spatula to mix everything well before serving.