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Spicy Chili Crisp Gifts

I'm visiting my family this weekend. I made a couple gifts for some of them and I felt like I needed to make enough for all of them. I've also been obsessed with the chili crisp recipe by Sohla El-Waylly during her time at Serious Eats.

It's a wonderful combination of fried shallots and garlic for crunch, dried chilis for heat, and Asian spices (most notably Szechuan peppercorns) for aroma. I've been trading it with my friends for some of their food products, such as ground deer meat and homemade Dongo. So, I thought sharing my obsession would be the perfect gift for the rest of my family.

Unfortunately, I didn't start the process until 8PM which was a poor decision. I finished cooking and cleaning around midnight. I would highly recommend getting others to help make this recipe. In fact, make it a party, make a big batch, and send everyone home with their own. Deseeding the chilis takes the most time. The Arbol chilis in particular are the most annoying due to their small size and large quantity. Frying the shallots also takes some time and practice. It requires constant stirring and attention because they soggy to crisp in less than a minute. I like to stir with chopsticks as the shallots don't attach to them very much. The rest of the process is pretty straightforward.

I've been actively searching for something that this doesn't work well with and so far, I've come up empty. Here is a categorization of things I've tried the chili crisp with:

Great

  • By the spoonful
  • Pizza
  • Eggs
  • Avocado toast
  • Pasta sauce (a la aglio e olio)
  • Chicken salad wraps/sandwiches
  • Cookies
  • Caramel Girl Scout cookies
  • Oatmeal Creampie
  • Vanilla ice cream

Okay

  • Coffee

Bad

  • Nothing yet!

I'll keep updating this list as I try new things.

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