FIVE STARS!
I admit it. I have a problem. A chili crisp problem. I must have no less than two backup bottles of Lao Gan Ma in my pantry at all times. I love it with rice, eggs, vegetables, pizza, avocado toast… even ice cream. So you can imagine my delight at finding out that James Park has written a cookbook devoted to one of my favorite condiments. It has something for every meal from breakfast through desserts -- some I’ve already made on my own, but also some incredibly creative new ideas, so many of which I’m looking forward to trying. What I’m most intrigued by, however, are the recipes for making my own version of chili crisp.

As a cookbook junkie (and an amateur cook), there are some elements I look for in cookbooks, and Mr. Park has hit them all. The instructions are clear and easy to follow, the photography is large, colorful, and enticing, and as someone who loves to read a cookbook, I always appreciate when an author includes history and information about the culture background of the food (as well as their own).

I am so grateful to James Park, Chronicle Books, and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review Chili Crisp. I’m looking forward to adding this one to my cookbook shelf.

I really enjoyed moments of Chili Crisp, and I like what Park is trying to do. I feel similarly about my heritage in relationship to American cuisine. I like his hyperfocus on chili crisp as a kind of oily hot sauce.

That being said, I'm not sure I learned too much from this book. I thought his kimchi quesadilla idea (where you cook the kimchi briefly) was interesting and appetizing. I also thought the recipe for a dessert-specific chili crisp was very cool. But as someone who's been on food social media (I even follow James!) and reading about chili crisp for years, I don't feel like I was introduced to anything earth shattering. But I'm not sure a cookbook needs to be earth shattering; it just needs to make sense, and taste good.

My biggest issue that the text of the book makes it seem like Park came up with "chili crisp tteokbokki' himself. Gireum tteokbokki (aka "oil tteokbokki") has been around for years. Park's recipe is definitely distinct (especially with the addition of heavy cream), but I think in the description for this recipe he needs to at least mention gireum tteokbokki.

This cookbook goes into great detail about what chilli crisp is and what essential items one should have in their pantry. It is nice that apart from the recipes for the actual chilli crisp there are recipes for main dishes and sides. All in all a solid cookbook I would have no problem purchasing on my own

Loved this book! So many good recipes I can’t wait to try!
I am an avid chili crunch fan, I make a big batch once a month and use it in everything but I didn’t know so many of the ways it can used!

What a great recipe book for beginners! I love eating spicy foods, and I especially love eating Asian-inspired food. I lived in Seattle for years, and many ingredients were easily accessible to me, including chili crisp. Now that I live in the Midwest, it is harder to find these items in restaurants or stores, and I had no idea where to start in creating some of the dishes I used to be able to get in the International District. The recipes in this book are easy to follow, and have a variety wide enough that I can find the ingredients to make many of the recipes found inside the book. I will definitely be trying the beef short rib ragu and the bucatini carbonara as soon as I hit the grocery store.

Thank you to Netgalley and James Park for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I LOVE chili crisp and was hooked on this book from the blurb. Not only does this have recipes for how to make your own chili crisp, it has wildly inventive recipes for how to use it in your everyday cooking. I was not expecting to see dessert recipes included but I will definitely be trying out the brownies. I enjoyed reading about the history and more about the ingredients that come together to create this delicious, fiery topping. I have to admit this feels like a very niche cookbook but trust me, it is a great addition to any collection! Easy-to-follow recipes, short ingredient lists, and vivid pictures throughout will leave your mouth watering.

I'm a chili crisp fanatic and always have bottles of it in the fridge. I have made a few crisps myself using recipes that I found on the internet, but I was thrilled to see this book and hoped to find some new recipes. My thanks to the publisher, Chronicle Books, and to NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

James Park has met all of this reader’s expectations. He provides some wonderful from-scratch recipes for chile crisp, including an Everyday Savory Chili Crisp that uses green onions, shallots, and garlic as the crunchy base, a Very Nutty Chili Crisp that calls for coarsely chopped nuts (I have always used peanuts, but I liked the fact that Park encourages experimentation with other kinds of nuts), and a Garlicky Onion Crunch that utilizes those dehydrated minced onions. I can't wait to try that one. Then he provides a kind of great rubric filled with a variety of ideas for mixing and matching your own bespoke Chili Crisp. This opening section is gold as far as I am concerned, and well worth the price of the book for these recipes alone.

From here, Park initially almost lost me as he began his recipe section with a chapter on breakfast foods. His suggestions for early morning applications of chili crisp are nothing if not imaginative. I was all in for Park’s suggestion of chili crisp served over fried eggs, but some of the recipes that followed were not as enticing to me. I would probably not even consider making the Spicy Breakfast Casserole with Tater Tots. That may just be a generational thing--I am not a fan of tater tots and this recipe calls for two pounds of them--but even without them the whole shebang is just too rich for my blood as it includes a cup of sour cream and two cups of cheese. I probably won't make the chili crisp biscuits with honey butter, as that flavor profile just feels too random.

Luckily, once moving past the breakfast chapter, the train jumps firmly back onto the tracks and just about all of the recipes that follow in the next chapters are wonderfully far ranging and inspiring. Park’s noodles chapter contains many delicious looking chili crisp recipes including a ramen dish, Instand Tan Tan Shin Ramyun; a gorgeous Korean Style Mapo Tofu with Noodles; and a delicious cold noodle dish called Bibim Guksu with Cucumbers, Green Onions, and Jammy Eggs.

I love mixing things up, and appreciate the creative spirit Park shows in creating several really sound, slightly experimental, possibilities. For example, I loved the idea of incorporating chili crisp into Beef Short Ribs Ragu, which makes a lot of sense to me flavor-wise, and I can see that using chili crisp in cornbread to enhance the commonly used green chiles would be an inspired pairing. I will also try the Spicy Pork Belly Stir Fry with Celery and the Steamed Mussels, which incorporates the chili crisp in the broth.

As with the breakfast chapter, I found the dessert chapter to be a bit strained, as the recipes are a mix of interesting, sound suggestions and others that feel a bit random, as though the chili crisp element is just being plugged in. But again, I imagine that many of these recipes will feel like fun possibilities for other readers.

Throughout the text, the author’s running personal commentary places himself within the context of the recipes and I enjoyed reading those sections, which give the reader a good sense of the author. The photographs were a mixed bag—some provide a helpful look at a dish, but others feel super-saturated and more impressionistic (how many close ups do we need of chili crisp?).

Overall, this is a trendy, fun book bursting with energy and great ideas and I recommend it.

Chili Crisp is a wonderful cookbook written for someone new to the condiment. The array of recipes, including 4 different chili crisp options, has great variety for people to try. The spicy green onion pancake recipe alone makes the book a worthwhile purchase and most of the recipes are made with inexpensive and easily accessible ingredients. There are even chapters for breakfast and dessert. Chili crisp is new to me and I wish there was more time devoted to how it was developed and how it is typically used in Chinese cuisine. Also wish there were more recipes to make chili crisp but appreciate the suggestions for purchasing ready-made options. Overall, a great book and its clear the writer is genuinely enthusiastic about cooking with chili crisp.

I received a complimentary copy of an advanced, uncorrected e-proof of “Chili Crisp: 50+ Recipes to Satisfy Your Spicy, Crunchy, Garlicky Cravings” from NetGalley and Chronicle Books in exchange for an honest review.

Unlike the vast majority of Americans, I have the luxury of living on my family’s farm. You read that right—living on a farm is a **luxury**. And part of that luxury is being able to grow nearly anything and everything that I want. For years now, I have indulged myself by growing a multitude of different peppers, including my favorite: Facing Heaven Peppers. So, when I came across “Chili Crisp” by James Park, I knew that I had to review it.

The author, Park, is a Korean American who immigrated to the US when he was still a child, with his family following soon after. Park talks a lot about ‘fitting in’ to the American lifestyle. However, as he later learned, ‘fitting in’ doesn’t have to be 100% assimilation, but rather acculturating. Park did this splendidly. I mean, seriously, what could be more American than his recipe for Kimchi Quesadilla with Chili Crisp? Park included 3 different cultures into a single recipe, and in my book, that is the American Way!

The use of Chili Crisp is not part of Korean food culture; in fact, it’s Chinese. I have been a connoisseur of Chinese (and especially Chinese American) food for as long as I can remember. I purchase items online that I can’t grow or make on the farm—like fermented black beans—and also make my own chili oil. But Chili Crisp is something entirely different and something that I had never tasted or heard of. I can proudly say that this has changed, thanks to the author.

Park includes numerous recipes for both the Chili Crisps and for food that incorporates Chili Crisp. For example, I made his recipe for Everyday Savory Chili Crisp, and it tasted SOOOOO good! Park also included a different recipe for Chili Crisp that removes garlic and other items so that it can be added to desserts. Yes! You read that right! Chili Crisp on ice cream!

What I really loved about this book is that Park incorporated different items in the Chili Crisp recipes. For example, Chinese and Korean ingredients, and even Aleppo peppers! I keep my pantry stocked with gochujang and a vast number of pan-Asian ingredients, so I had nearly everything on hand to make his recipes.

I have to admit, in the past, I’ve been pretty critical of homemade fried rice recipes. The recipes that I’ve tasted were NOT good. So, I decided to take the plunge (again!) and make Chili Crisp Fried Rice. I will admit that I was hesitant, primarily because the recipe calls for one-third of a cup of garlic. And that is a LOT of garlic. But O.M.G.!!!! This recipe was so good that I cannot believe that I was able to make it at home. In fact, it tastes **even better** than take out! Not only did I make the recipe exactly as directed, but I had to add even more of the Chili Crisp on top of the rice when I was done.

This book is really excellent, and I can see it being a popular check-out item at public libraries. I don’t consider myself a ‘foodie’, but this book needs to be sitting on every Asian food lovers personal library—the recipes are **that** good!

My family LOVES chili crisp. We practically drink it. So you can probably guess I was ecstatic when I saw this cookbook. I cannot wait to try out some of these recipes. I like how the recipes are written. The pictures are fantastic. I love all the other information in the book.

I stumbled upon chili crisp oil on TikTok and found myself going down the Asian aisle at my local grocery store and grabbing it and my life has been changed since! I love spice, my mom named me after cayenne pepper so I feel it’s ingrained into me to love it! But let me tell you… chili crisp accompanies all my dishes and elevates them so when I seen this cook book I had to snatch it and try for myself, because I opened a door I didn’t want to shut! I highly recommend if you love chili crisp and are looking to elevate and incorporate it into your dishes! Breakfast, noodles, sides, dessert CHILI CRISP has taken over and myself and taste buds are along for the ride. I highly recommend this cookbook for finding your next “try it out” meal. You won’t be disappointed!

Like many others I had heard about this wonderful condiment called chili crisp but I wasn’t sure what it was let alone how to use it. This book explained what it was (and wasn’t) in addition to providing some recipes to create my own at home. A few of the recipes seem a little more complex than what I would like for my everyday cooking. I did like that there were recipes that were similar to things that I do make (looking at you spaghetti and breakfast casserole with tater tot’s) to show how I could use a new ingredient to put a new spin on something we already like.

This is a great cookbook, and I loved the chapter intros as well. So many awesome-sounding recipes, I can't wait to buy a hard copy once it's out. And now I'm off to make chili crisp pasta for dinner....

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I love Asian food and I love spice, but somehow, I've never stumbled across the chili crisp condiment....until now. Tomorrow's to-do list includes securing my very first jar of chili crisp (the author provides several recipes for homemade chili crisps, but he also gives recommendations for his pre-made favorites, so I'll start with those). There are so many recipes I want to try, but I think my first attempts will be the chili crisp fried eggs, the Korean-style mapo tofu and the spicy salted caramel bars. Excited!

If Chili Crips has a million fans I am one of them, if Chili Crisp only has one fan, it is me. I have never made my own, and am happy with the Trader Joes garlic version, but oh my god. This book offers different versions and even a TJ replica. I am 100% going to be trying to make my own once my current jar is low.

I love that theres different flavor profiles offered as well as spice levels, it allows readers and cooks to customize their chili crisp experience. I am a firm believer that most savory foods pair well with chili crisp, but this book gave me so many ideas for new recipes to try.

This isn't an essential cookbook but definitely a fun one for those of us that like to collect fun ones with focus on specific things. This would be a great gift for people who love to cook... and want a little spice in their life.

I actually just bought some chili crisp at the store on a whim about a month ago, with no idea what to do with it. So this cookbook came at the perfect time. I already made one recipe and it was easy and delicious. I love how versatile chili crisp is and the book has ways to incorporate it into any meal, even things I never would have thought of.

This cookbook is nice! The recipes are written for anyone to be able to follow them easily and the pictures make the food look very appetizing. I also appreciated the inclusion of the author’s cultural background and stories. Chili Crisp has gained popularity over the years across populations and I think a lot will be interested in this cookbook. It’d also make a nice Christmas gift.

This will make a great addition to anyone's collection. I liked the information given at the beginning about chili crisp and also different pantry items to have on hand to enhance your cooking experience. The author encourages the cook to be creative and I really like that. There are also pictures for the recipes that will make you drool.