30 DAYS OPEN PURCHASEChilli + Umami is built around a simple and surprisingly underrated idea. Put the work in beforehand, in a jar, and eat well for the rest of the month.
Most books about quick cooking make the recipes shorter. Jonas Cramby does the opposite. He makes a batch of chilli oil, a fermented sauce or a spice paste once, and then it takes ten seconds to lift any everyday dish with a spoonful of it. It is the same principle Asian home kitchens have worked with for centuries and one that Western cookbooks have consistently missed.
Umami is the other half of the title and the part that makes it work. It is about everything fermented, dried or aged, things like fish sauce, miso, soy sauce, anchovies, Parmesan, dried mushrooms and tomato purée. The chilli brings the heat, the umami brings the depth, and together they make food that is difficult to stop eating.
The 85 recipes draw on the cultures that actually know how to do this. Thai pad kra pao, Portuguese piri piri, Italian American spicy rigatoni alla vodka and Korean buldak.
Cramby is a journalist rather than a chef, which in his case is a strength. This is his tenth cookbook, following titles including Texmex från grunden, Mackor, Japansk grillning and Kinamat varje dag, and he has described it as the book that comes closest to how he actually cooks at home.
No reference tome, no technical bible. Just the kind of book that gets dirty within a month.
Number of recipes: 85
ISBN: 9781807120658
Language: English
First published: August 2026
