# Help me make some award-winning chili!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-make-some-award-winning-chili/996739>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** food-cooking\
**Created:** [January 27, 2024, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-make-some-award-winning-chili/996739 "2024-01-27T16:59:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 35

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**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\
**Post date:** [January 29, 2024, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-make-some-award-winning-chili/996739/35 "2024-01-29T12:14:56Z")

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Interesting debate on whether or not chili is a stew. It’s one of those things I never really thought about, and it seems weird to call chili a type of stew, but I guess it is. Only thing is, I typically thicken stews with either a roux or a flour slurry added toward the end, but I guess it doesn’t really matter how the stew is thickened. And hey, that means a gumbo is a stew too! Mind blown 😲

So here’s how I made my chili:

I started out toasting whole cumin seed, allspice berries (thanks for that idea @pulykamell - allspice was a fantastic addition), black peppercorns, dried Kashmiri peppers and dried Tabasco-style peppers I still had left over from [this plant](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-leaves-of-my-pepper-plant-turning-yellow/990554). Then I ground it all up into a powder.

Then I browned chunks of chuck meat. Removed the meat, and browned onions with bacon. When the onions were pretty far along I added diced jalapeño and Serrano peppers and garlic. Also added the chili powder I made, to bloom it.

Next I took a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and a can of crushed tomatoes, puréed them together, and added them along with a Bell’s Two Hearted IPA and some beef stock. The puréed chipotle / tomato mixture thickened the ‘stew’ up nicely.

I let it simmer for two hours, then adjusted sodium and umami to taste with a little Thai fish sauce, soy sauce, and plain old salt. Finally I added the juice of one juicy lime.

It turned out pretty excellent, I must say. The only disappointment was, for some reason, the chunks of chuck meat did not become falling-apart tender- they were still kind of tough and chewy, despite the fact I slow-simmered the chili for two hours. I’ve cooked plenty of meals with chuck steak / roast and I know how to get it falling-apart tender, so it was weird that it stayed tough.

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