Brown Butter Chili Crisp Recipe
By Brian Reese
The finished product, positively dripping
Hey y’all, this is Brian Reese, Sous Chef at The Magpie and Golden Goose, and proud SA resident.
In recent years, being a chef has become haute couture. When I got my start in the kitchen, working in food service was often looked down upon as a second-class occupation. Suddenly, it’s cool to make gastriques, braise a nice side of pork belly, and parrot things like “heard, chef” and “behind, walking sharp.”
One of my favorite sayings is “Everyone wants to be a chef ‘til it’s time to be a chef”: it all seems so glamorous when you’re gracefully spooning beautiful sauces over a myriad of plates, delicately wiping them down, and sending them out to diners waiting with eager delight. But that singular, divine moment is—more often than not—the result of countless hours of hard work and dedication that seldom gets recognized.
I wanted this to be not only a recipe, but a glimpse into what it means to prepare food professionally. I chose one of my favorite fall condiments that I use at the restaurant as a vessel to explain some of the core tenets of not just being a chef, but being a good one. My goal is to teach you how to cook shoulder-to-shoulder with any professional cook, without having to get a bunch of tattoos.
Chili crisp is a Chinese condiment currently sweeping the nation, and for good reason. Its roots trace back to the Sichuan region, known for its dried chiles and fragrant, floral peppercorns, making chili crisp a perfect harmony of the two staples. You’ve probably seen commercial products on your grocer’s shelves, like Lao Gan Ma (the gold standard), David Chang’s Momofuku Brand, or even my personal favorite, Spice Girl, an aromatic and perfectly-balanced, locally-made offering. I thought perhaps I’d help you cut out the middleman and teach you a couple of very handy techniques in the process.
We’ll be making my fall version, using brown butter as our fat component (in lieu of the traditional vegetable or seed oil) to craft an insanely versatile incarnation that I’m sure you’ll have as much fun finding new uses for as I have.
Consider conventional applications like tossing the chili crisp with noodles (yes, even Italian-style pasta with some freshly-grated parmesan and a squeeze of lemon), on chicken wings (in my case, duck wings with charred squash curry and candied orange peel at the restaurant), or spooning over some crispy tofu. More avant-garde uses might include drizzling a warm and generous spoonful over a scoop of vanilla ice cream (trust me, it will change your life), or pairing it with the sweet potato casserole at this year’s Thanksgiving dinner to instantly become everyone’s favorite relative.
Combining sweet and nutty brown butter with smoky chiles and warm seasonal spices, this recipe perfectly bridges the sweet–savory spectrum, as well as the proverbial East–West culinary divide. Don’t call it the ‘F’ word (“fusion,” industry professionals loathe the term); food is and always will be an amorphous, ever-changing concept, with traditions spanning the breadth of the human experience, and cutting-edge techniques and ingredients that our ancestors could never have imagined. I try to not let myself get too hung up on any black-and-white definition of what food is or isn't, and just have fun cooking up whatever suits my mood. ■
Brown Butter Chili Crisp
Mis en Place (a french culinary term meaning “put in place”, referring to having your ingredients chopped, measured, and prepared before you begin cooking
Ingredients
16 oz Brown Butter
Garlic, in a separate container:
½ tablespoon minced garlic
Chilis, in a separate container:
4 guajillo peppers, roughly cut
6 chili de arbol
Whole spices, in a separate container:
1 tablespoon sesame seed, black or white,
2 tablespoon pepita (pumpkin seed)
½ pod star anise
3 (literally 3) cloves
½ tablespoon Szechuan peppercorn
1 cinnamon stick, roughly broken
Ground spices and seasonings in a heat-proof (preferably a metal mixing) bowl:
1 tablespoon White Vinegar
1 tablespoon Gochujaru
1 tablespoon Crushed Red Pepper
1 tablespoon Paprika
½ tablespoon Salt, Kosher
½ tablespoon Sugar, Granulated
To make brown butter
1. In a medium-sized sauce pot, begin melting butter over medium heat. As the butter heats, the fats will separate from the milk solids. The milk solids will float to the top, then sink once all of the water is cooked out; once settled, they’ll caramelize on the bottom of the pan, giving us that signature nutty-brown butter flavor. The entire process takes about 40 minutes—you’ll know it’s ready by both the smell and golden-brown color of the milk solids on the bottom of the pan.
2. While the butter is browning, measure out the rest of your ingredients. You’ll want your chilis, whole spices, and ground spices measured and kept separate.
3. After the butter has been browned, pass it through a fine-mesh strainer into a heat-proof container to remove any solids that might have been released from the bottom of the pan. Discard the solids and wash the pot.
One potential application of many
To make brown butter chili crisp
4. After the pot is clean, return your strained brown butter into the pot and place back over medium heat. You’ll want to use an instant-read or candy thermometer to keep a close eye on the temperature: 325°F is perfect.
5. Once the temperature is reached, add garlic and fry until golden brown. Using a fine-mesh strainer, remove the garlic from the butter and set aside in the heat-proof bowl with the mixed ground spices and seasonings.
6. Add chilis to the butter and toast for about 30 seconds, until aromatic and the whole kitchen smells divine. Using the fine-mesh strainer, remove chilis from the butter and toss them in the heat-proof bowl along with the garlic and ground spices.
7. Add your whole spices and toast them in the butter until pepitas are golden-brown, once more using the fine mesh strainer to remove the whole spices from the butter, and once again, place in the heat-proof bowl.
8. Bring the butter back to 325°F and then carefully pour it over your reserved garlic, chiles, and spices in the heat-proof bowl. The mixture will bubble up and expand, so make sure you leave about two to three inches of extra space in your bowl to account for this.
9. At this point, your kitchen will smell heavenly and you’re going to want to taste it. Resist that temptation and let it cool until your chili crisp reaches room temperature. This will allow all the flavors to marry and mature, ensuring the most flavorful product.
10. You now have a completed brown butter chili crisp. Consume immediately or transfer to containers for storage. We apply the ‘Rule of 3’ for storage: it will keep 3 days at room temp, 3 weeks in a refrigerator, or 3 months in a freezer. (It is butter, so it will solidify and will need to be warmed to serve.)
