Chile crisp

now with (eventual) video

Hi, clowns!

First off, I have an announcement to make! I think it is one that will make many of you happy.

After so many requests over the years, I am finally going to start documenting Food is Stupid on video. Yep. I’ve officially caved in to peer pressure. In fact, I’ve already started doing it, beginning with last week’s edition of the newsletter.

@foodisstupidTakis plus tteokbokki = Takibokki. Korean-Mexican fusion at its finest. #takis #wendys #koreanfood #mukbang #cooking

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

For now, I’ll be posting videos to DickDock (TikTok) under the account @foodisstupid (duh).

I know Substack also hosts videos, but as much as I loathe TikTok as a platform, I think it just resonates more with people, so I’ll work with it for now. And don’t worry — the newsletter is still going to be my primary home.

Now you’ll be able to see all the things you can’t normally see via the photos I take. This includes me eating the food, the gang hangin’ out on the counter, and occasionally Davida will make an appearance too. I’ll also be posting other odds and ends, and maybe little jokey stuff that ended up on the cutting room floor. It’ll be a bit slow, probably awkward too, until I figure out how to be efficient at it.

The reason why I’ve resisted for so long is because video amounts to a lot of additional work, and with a full-time job and another newsletter spotlighting restaurants around our beloved Chicago, it just felt like too much for me to handle. I’ll be working at my own pace, so I won’t be able to guarantee when videos drop; when they’re ready, they’re ready.

That being said, the newsletter will always be more detailed, and in my opinion, a lot more fun, just because my main love will always be writing (tied with fucking around).

Please consider upgrading your subscription, though. I might need some new gear (I’ve already bought a bit of basic stuff), and the extra work may prove to be overwhelming. I could use a little encouragement and support. But I do think this is sort of that last piece of the puzzle everyone wanted, so hopefully I won’t get crushed with work, and this’ll end up being fun.

One last thing: Videos won’t be released until some time after each newsletter edition drops (editing is proving to be a bit time-consuming), so you clowns will always get Food is Stupid into your inbox before you see those short videos.

So if you’re on TikTok, follow @foodisstupid right this second before I chicken out, okay?!

Now on to the show. I can’t wait to finish the video for this one because it involves me putting a fully-dressed hot dog, bun and all, into my food processor.

---

Chinese chili crisp is one of food internet’s biggest obsessions.

That is because it is fucking delicious. I mean, it’s fried spicy crunchy things drowning in oil that you dump all over your food. Davida was reading over something I wrote last week when she pointed out that I kept spelling the term “chili crisp” as “chile crisp” due to a weird habit of mine, because I used to have to spell it that way working for a former employer.

“Chile crisp,” Davida muttered. Then she looked at me and blinked.

Although I have never been there, Chile seems like a cool country. Was there any famous Chilean food I could use to turn into a “Chile crisp?”

The thing is, I’ve…never had Chilean food. So I asked my friend Titus, who’s the most knowledgeable person about food I know, if he was familiar with any famous Chilean dishes. He rattled off a bunch via text, but one dish caught my eye: The Chilean “completo,” which means “complete” in English.

That’s because it’s a type of hot dog, and you know how I’m obsessed with hot dogs. A completo’s toppings can vary, but they can come with stuff like mayo, avocado, chopped tomatoes, and sauerkraut. You can read more about them on my friend Jim’s blog, Sandwich Tribunal.

Then I thought to myself, “Dannis Ree, as the greatest food writer in all of history, could you possibly fuse a Chilean hot dog with the function of a basic Chinese chili crisp? So, basically, a spoonable hot dog?”

Fuck yeah, I could. I think.

For my version of this magical Chile crisp, I’d combine a few key elements of both the completo and regular chili crisp to make a similar oily condiment to put on anything you like.

Just kidding. I totally decided to make an entire completo to blend into my Chile crisp, bun and all, because I’m a degenerate.

I started by chopping up all the toppings, including a partially rotten tomato (no, I don’t want to talk about it) and some avocado.

The store-bought sauerkraut was already good to go, and within a few minutes of opening it, appeared to be attracting tiny flies in our kitchen. Or perhaps I have finally taken on my final form as Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies. Kneel in my stench, mortals!

Since it’s summer, I decided to grill the hot dogs outside.

One would be to shove up my ass (aka lunch), the other would be for the completo.

When I got back inside, I began dressing the hot dog with its toppings, starting with the mayo.

Then I added the avocado, tomatoes, and sauerkraut, and realized with dismay that the flies were actually there for the fermented cabbage, not for me.

I regret to inform you all that I am not, in fact, Beelzebub. I will regretfully retake my place on the throne as the greatest food writer in all of history. God, I was ready to wield such smelly power, too. Beelzebub is like the Pigpen of demons and that would have been so cool.

I then jammed the entire completo, bun and all, into my food processor.

I should send this edition of the newsletter to the fine folks at Hamilton Beach. I think they will be delighted at how their hardware is being used for home culinary innovation. Perhaps they will sponsor me, or more likely, send me some sort of cease and desist letter which I will also throw into the food processor.

“Caesar and Desist Salad Dressing” has a ring to it. I bet paper makes for an excellent emulsifier.

I wasn’t sure how to feel when I watched this turn from a perfectly pretty-looking hot dog into what appeared to be some sort of tuna salad, however.

The resulting paste was very interesting when examined more closely.

I could make out small bits of hot dog and flecks of tomato skin, but everything else was now a uniform shade of khaki. This paste was very thick, and I briefly considered frying it up into little patties, but I had a mission to “completo.” Get it? I can crack jokes using words from other languages!

For the chili part of the Chile crisp, I started with a bunch of crushed red pepper.

I just used some basic-ass pepper from the regular supermarket, though I know I could have sourced the real stuff from the Asian one. As you know, I believe food does not have to have borders, especially in the case of this newsletter, because the language of stupid food is universal.

Next, I added some sunflower seeds for texture (that was my own twist), and I added a key component from the original chili crisp, which is Sichuan peppercorn.

These peppercorns were ancient. I bought them all the way back in 2023 for another edition of the newsletter (which was a sandwich designed to give us nothing but pain), and I hope to have them in my pantry for the next 40 years. It could have been for eternity, if I’d only made the transformation into Beelzebub, goddammit.

And finally, I added in some rehydrated minced onions I had in the cabinet along with some freshly crushed garlic.

Then I stirred everything together to create an even weirder, somewhat nastier paste of disparate ingredients.

While that sat, I heated up a bunch of neutral oil on the stove in a medium-sized saucepan.

I let it crank until the entire apartment smelled like cooking oil. My clothes smelled like oil, the gang started to smell like oil, and when the cats’ fur started to smell like oil, this meant it was ready.

I then poured the scaldingly hot oil on top of the Chile crisp paste and it began to sizzle in a satisfying way.

I could hear everything sort of cooking together, which seemed promising.

Once everything had cooled off, I stirred the Chile crisp to break up any major clumps, and admired that it did sort of look like real chili crisp.

Only I knew its dark secret, that there was a whole fucking Chilean hot dog in it, which was an endless source of delight to me.

To finish it off, I added a squeeze of fresh lime juice to it, because it seemed like it might need a little bit of acid.

And as a vehicle to taste-test this brand new concoction, I decided to make a few sunny-side up eggs, because that seems to be what everyone puts normal chili crisp on top of.

Aside from the color, the visual aspect of the Chile crisp seemed about right.

It had flecks of red pepper, along with bits of this and that in it, though most of it was unidentifiable. I could only hope that everything would have the right crunchy texture to it, because that is part of the joy of chili crisp.

Too bad it didn’t.

Man, this shit was weird. In terms of flavor, it was mildly palatable, but aside from giant bits of Sichuan peppercorn (should I have used powder?!) and sunflower seeds, it was impossible to identify what anything else was in it. And it turns out that really old Sichuan peppercorn loses a lot of that tingly sensation you get from eating it.

Overall, this Chile crisp was mildly spicy, bitter, tart from the lime, and if there was any hot dog flavor in it, I could barely tell, though there might have been just a hint of smoke. I’d say this was almost all about weird bits of nonsensical texture rather than any good flavor, and overall, it was not a good experience. And I was pretty sure I was going to sweat pure grease in the next 24 hours.

I probably should have added salt and MSG granules to it too, but I don’t think that would have rescued it by much. Davida was out for the day, so she didn’t try any, and when she saw it out on the counter after getting back, she asked, “Can you get rid of it?”

I think it’s safe to say that I won’t need my spelling corrected in the future.

---

The cats still smell greasy, but I am sure they’re thrilled about smelling like human food.

If you enjoyed today’s free edition of Food is Stupid, don’t forget to like it and give it a share (this does wonders for the newsletter):

And don’t forget to follow my TikTok account, @foodisstupid.

Don’t worry, I won’t be constantly hassling you about this, it’s mostly just so you know that there’s something to watch now. I might start uploading straight to Substack later, but I really don’t want to clog up your feeds just yet until I understand how this all works, because constant video annoys me too.

Lastly, your subscriptions are what make the newsletter happen.

We’re zeroing in on six years of Food is Stupid now, and so many of you have been here with me through thick and thin. Every other edition’s paywalled — and if you’re new to the newsletter, you get to catch up on a shitload of posts (well over 100 now). The newsletter is a lot of work, and every subscription goes a long way.

Okay, everyone, that’s it for this drop. As always, I love you all, and I’ll hop into your inboxes again next week.