Thanks for all the great ideas! I’ll report back with how it turned out.
Hard pressed to think of any situation this isn’t good advice.
Some people may be aghast & clutch their fainting pearls, but … you know those tiny packets of Knorr unflavored gelatin powder?
Add some of that. Once dissolved, it’s … ta-dah!! collagen.
It’s still not the same as homemade, mostly in terms of flavor, but adding a bit of ^^ can really boost the texture of store-bought stock/broth.
I have no problems with collagen from store bought sources, and use a good bit of agar in cooking, so no pearls clutched here (although you’re absolutely right, collagen isn’t the only thing you get from a good homemade stock!). I get incensed that the store sells things that claim to be stock, but if they are, are at nigh-homeopathic levels of dilution!
It’s the ripoff/misleading advertising, not the origin that drives me up the wall!
I always throw a can of pumpkin in mine…not traditional, I know, but sneaks in some vitamins and sweetness.
Here’s the recipe I like. It’s warm, rather than blistering hot, but quite tasty:
Chili #2
1 1/2 lb ground beef
1 16-oz can red kidney beans
1 cup tomato juice
1 medium onion, chopped
7 dried red chili peppers (new mexicos, anchos, or pasillas are good)
1 tsp mexican oregano (if available)
1 tsp jamaican allspice (if available)
1 bay leaf
grated cheddar cheese (for garnish)
minced green onions (for garnish)
Cook onion and hamburger meat in a frying pan; drain off grease.
Break the stems off the chile pods and discard the seeds. Place the chiles in a sink or large bowl, rinse carefully and drain. Place the damp pods in one layer on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 5 minutes, watching carefully to avoid burning them. The chiles can have a little remaining moisture. Remove them from the oven and let cool. Break each chile into 2-3 pieces.
Puree in a blender half of the pods with 2 cups of water. You will be able to see tiny pieces of chile pulp, but they should be bound in a smooth, thick liquid. Repeat with remaining pods and water.
(If dried red chili peppers are not available, two 4-oz cans of chopped green chilis can be substituted.)
Add the chili paste, beans, and spices to the hamburger meat. Pour juice into the blender to capture remaining clumps of pureed chiles, then into the meat. Add salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for about 30 minutes.
Eh…I don’t buy that. Stew is thicker than soup and chili is thicker than stew. Perhaps arbitrary distinctions but there are lines there.
Unless you make a watery chili which I will not eat and do not consider chili. Just my $0.02
The stews I make can be quite thick; chili would easily qualify.
Like, for example, here’s a picture of a Texas bowl of red. I make mine like this but also with ground beef in addition to the chunks of meat. That’s definitely what qualifies as a “stew” to me. (Or at least how I’ve always used the word. It can also apply to soupier things, but I think of those more as chunky soups than stews. But the word has a wide range.)
Thinking on it more you are correct. I can think of some pretty thick stews.
But I will not accept chili as a stew. Chalk it up to, “I know it when I see it,” since definitions won’t get us an answer. Chili is its own thing.
OK. I mean, you can have whatever personal definition you want for it, but chili is absolutely a stew. There is nothing un-stew-like about it. Every dictionary I’ve checked, Wikipedia, etc. calls it a “stew.” I’m not sure why we need a different category for it. What I posted above looks exactly like Hungarian pörkölt, which often is translated as Hungarian goulash, which everyone agrees is a stew, so I don’t get why it wouldn’t be a subcategory of stew. It literally is stewed meat!
I suspect if you invited friends over for a meal telling them you were making a beef stew and you handed them beef chili they’d be surprised. I bet you’d be surprised in their position. I’m not sure handing them a dictionary will make them less surprised.
But, to each their own. This is one internet fight I don’t want to do (partly because I like you and don’t want ill-will). If you want me to say you are right then fine…you are right.
Agreed on all points. Stew, like soup, is a type of dish; subsets of those include chilis, chowders, and every other descriptive.
I throw in a cup of coffee , adds an earthy flavor . Also you can never go wrong with cooking it a day or so in advance and letting it sit. I find it helps the beans and gives a fuller texture and taste for the chilli.
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. 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.
Stews don’t have to be thickened with any thickening agent. Just letting them cook down is enough. My Hungarian stews, for instance, like goulash do not get any thickening agent. (Paprikash does, though.) Gumbo is one of those things that is between a soup and a stew. I’d probably put it a little more towards the soup side, but either classification would be fine with me.
For chili, I don’t usually thicken, but if I feel the need to, a slurry of masa harina or cornmeal works nicely, but I’ve used standard slurries, as well.
Just cook longer. I’ve had chuck take 3 hours or more to tenderize properly. Otherwise, the only problem I could see is if it wasn’t chuck or if it somehow was a particularly non well marbled cut, but if you bought a choice grade or higher, you should have been fine.
Do you have a pressure cooker? If you do, you can stick a portion of the chili into it and set it for 30 minutes, natural release, and see what happens. If it’s going to break down, it should break down by then. If it works, throw the rest of the chili in and do the same. I’ve done this in a pinch, as well, when my meat was not breaking down on the schedule I was expecting.
I do, I have an Instant Pot I use pretty often, and I almost used it for part of the cooking, but I thought I had enough simmering time. Oh well. Live and learn.
Mmm, goulash or paprikash sounds great for a winter meal. I’ll have to look up recipes and make these very soon.
Oh, so there’s no leftovers? I was hoping you can try for us so we can get down to figuring out the issue. But, yes, like I said, sometimes some cuts of chuck just take longer. I don’t know if it’s because I’m simmering more gently or what, but when I give stew instructions out, I always says it’ll take like 1.5-3 hrs, just keep checking. As long as you take it relatively slow and use the right cut, it should be fine. Beware of stuff like “stew meat,” because they use all sorts of cuts in there, lots of times round, and round doesn’t really break down well. It’ll get soft but stringy, not some luscious like chuck or (my fave) boneless short ribs. I’m sure you didn’t do that, though, since you do mention chuck specifically, so this is more for other readers.
I’ll IM you my recipes for both in a couple hours for at least one reference point in your recipe search.
Actually, there is. So you’re suggesting I put the leftovers in the Instant Pot for a half hour to try to soften up the beef? Intriguing idea… 
I think I will try this later!
Awesome 