After cooking from Samin Nosrat’s Good Things, I ended up with a very happy abundance of chili crisp in my refrigerator. Naturally, I wanted a way to use some of it up, so I consulted James Park’s cookbook, Chili Crisp: 50+ Recipes to Satisfy Your Spicy, Crunchy, Garlicky Cravings.
I first heard about this book on Salt & Spine, a podcast that, if you love cookbooks as much as I do, you absolutely need to follow. Intrigued by the prospect of a book that follows a single, versatile ingredient across all meals of the day (even dessert!), I had this in the back of my mind for over a year before I finally rented it from the library.
The pasta recipes alone could constitute their own cookbook! The two I made knocked my socks off, and everything I made really hit the mark and gave me a deep appreciation for chili crisp.
I hope to make Park’s flagship chili crisp recipe, Everyday Savory Chili Crisp, when I eventually run out of my current supply; it seems less labor intensive than Nosrat’s version, what with 8 cloves of garlic to mince rather than 4+ heads to mince. I would also love to make Park’s Very Nutty Chili Crisp recipe so that I can try the desserts in this book! For obvious reasons (shallots and garlic, in case you need a hint), I opted not to use my homemade chili crisp to make any desserts this round, but I am bummed to miss out on those sweet and spicy flavors.
It’s hard to be too bummed, though, after eating all of the delectable meals I did make from the book!
spicy garlicky corn cheese ciabatta bread
Used throughout the marketing copy for this cookbook, the Spicy Garlicky Corn Cheese Ciabatta Bread is pure gluttony, with a gut-busting amount of both three types of dairy and three forms of garlic—and it’s by far the most showstopping garlic bread I’ve ever made.
I’ve heard of Korean corn cheese but hadn’t had it before making this dish. A longtime fan of KFC’s Famous Bowls, I feel like I’d been on the corn-plus-cheese bandwagon already. Besides the garlic, once I started mixing the corn cheese, I couldn’t get over the fact that, with the corn, mayo, cheese, and chili, it’s a close cousin to elote or esquites.
Rather than using store-bought ciabatta bread, I used this as an excuse to revive my somewhat dormant sourdough starter and make a boule of sourdough bread, which absolutely held up well to the corn topping and melted mozzarella.
Once you make the corn mixture, the garlic bread part is more or less on-demand. I have half the batch in my refrigerator as I type, and I will probably eat it for lunch the next couple of days, with a shot of Listerine for dessert.
chili crisp bucatini carbonara
It’ll be hard to go back to regular carbonara after eating this flavor explosion of a variation!
The ingredients in Chili Crisp Bucatini Carbonara are simple and traditional: cured meat, egg yolks, good Parmesan, bucatini, and fresh black pepper, with the addition of chili crisp, of course. I couldn’t find pancetta when I got my groceries this week, so I subbed bacon, and it worked like a charm.
The chili crisp added so much to this meal! With the creamy, spicy flavors, it tasted like something I’d order at a good Italian restaurant. What a treat!
I made this recipe on a weeknight, after working all evening, and it was quite easy to put dinner on the table in just longer than the time it takes to boil the bucatini.
It’s hard to choose a favorite out of all the recipes out of this book I’ve tried, but I think it has to be this one. I’m not going to be able to resist adding a generous scoop of chili crisp to carbonara ever again.
spicy tomato and egg soup
A cross behind a tomato stew and egg drop soup, the Spicy Tomato and Egg Soup is a simple, satisfying dish served perfectly with sticky white rice.
Park describes this recipe as a “breakfast soup,” which is intriguing to me as a soup lover, but I feel like the bold and saucy flavors are better suited (in my opinion) to dinner. Then again, I am more of a sweet, not savory, breakfast person.
I loved the small chunks of cooked eggs and soft sliced onions in this dish. Since tomatoes aren’t in season, I subbed a 28-ounce can of whole peeled tomatoes for the 3 fresh tomatoes called for in the recipe, and I feel like I got a better amount of liquid and softness from the tomatoes with this variation—though I’d be open to trying it with fresh tomatoes in the height of summer, just to see how it tastes.
While I didn’t eat this as a breakfast soup, I very much enjoyed it for dinner and the next day’s lunch!
baked chili crisp farfalle pasta with goat brie cheese
A cheesy baked pasta dish with Italian sausage and minced dried apricots? Say no more.
At the most basic level, the Baked Chili Crisp Farfalle Pasta with Goat Brie Cheese was a fancy macaroni and cheese recipe. But flavor-wise, what a ride! Knowing that the serving size said 8-10, I cut this one in half (and still got 2.5 servings out of it, whoops!), but—if I didn’t have wisdom teeth surgery scheduled 36 hours after making this—would have been quite content eating all 8 servings over a few days (or, you know, maybe sharing another serving with my husband).
I forgot the chopped fresh parsley garnish, but I did drizzle the finished product with hot honey, and that was absolutely the cherry on top.
Another delight about this dish, besides the caramelized dried apricots and drizzle of hot honey, was the chili crisp. The cookbook author instructed me to mix a good tablespoon in with the sausage and another with the cheese sauce. When I ate it, I was overjoyed to get a few yummy, roasty garlic slices that made the hour of slicing garlic by hand (see my experience with Samin Nosrat’s Good Things for the whole story) absolutely worth it.
I could see this fancy baked mac killing it at a potluck. It’s right up there with the best baked cheesy pasta recipes I’ve ever tasted, let alone made.
. . . . . . .
I had fun cooking and eating from Chili Crisp, and the experience has given me an even deeper appreciation for the savory, garlicky condiment. Single-ingredient-focused cookbooks can sometimes be a tough sell, but this one proved inspired, unique, and delicious.
I borrowed this cookbook from the library (blasphemy, right? After all, I own so many cookbooks), but I daresay I’d buy it if the opportunity arose. The recipes I tried make me want to taste others, especially the desserts!
Chili Crisp: 50+ Recipes to Satisfy Your Spicy, Crunchy, Garlicky Cravings, James Park. August 29, 2023, Chronicle Books.