As you might imagine, as a food writer and food enthusiast, I consume a lot of food media on a daily basis, probably too much. It takes a lot to make something stick in my head though, but the idea of the limited release McDonald's chili oil sundae only available in China stuck with me. Sweet, creamy, fiery, crunchy, what's not to possibly love?
Since we cannot travel to China because you know, COVID, and because I don't think I can handle that long of a flight after not traveling for so long, we're re-versioning it here at home. The sundae idea itself is said to be based on youpo noodles. It may not be exactly like we'd get at a McD's in the Shaanxi Province, but thanks to Trader Joe's Chili Onion Crunch, we can approximate it! So let's do this!
I started off by asking Patrick if he was READY FOR THIS. Then I went to the nearby McDonald's with a working ice cream machine and ordered two plain vanilla sundaes and returned home. We opened a new jar of the chili onion crunch purchased just for this occasion and artfully sprinkled it over the ice cream. Use a spoon here for best results and to not drown the ice cream in too much chili oil or crunch.
How was that first taste? Patrick says "It was rather smoky. Tasted like chili oil on soft serve ice cream."
Since this version is not hot, I tried it too, and it was... alright. The mental idea of the savory on the sweet smoothness of soft serve made the first bite taste off for me, but I swallowed it and took another bite. The second bite gave way to more of the crunchiness of the topping, and a hint of sweet garlic crept up to the edges of my tastebuds, but the soft serve ultimately was the dominant taste here.
A Little Bit Hotter
But wait, there's higher levels of hotness you can ascend to. Have you seen Trader Joe's latest product offering, sent straight up from the river Styx? It's HOT HOT Crispy Habanero Peppers in Oil, a similar concept to the much tamer chili onion crunch. CONCEPT. This stuff will burn your face off. It's hotter than 40 hells. It should be tamed a little by the cool, creaminess of McDonald's ice cream... right?!
We only used A LITTLE. SO MUCH LITTLER than the other kind. I extremely recommend you do the same if you replicate this yourself. If you think you're some impervious man who can take it, fine, be my guest. Hurt yourself at your own discretion, I really don't care. But everyone else with some sense, taste a tiny dot of it first, a good recommendation in all instances of hot sauce and related entities.
"You have the same sort of feel off the beginning of it and the heat came on but the ice cream subdued it. It was mighty spicy."
He is not wrong, these things are hot. I touched my tongue to one spot of it when we first got it, and don't care to try it again, or any more. I did not try this version.
In case you don't have a Trader Joe's nearby, you can buy chili oil garlic crunch online. I don't see a habanero crunch approximation online, which may be for the best.
Final conclusion: It's an interesting thing to do on a Sunday afternoon if you've got the chili onion crunch. If you're bored, and near a McDonald's with a working ice cream machine, why not?