Paging All Chili-makers: Another Bowl of Texas Red

Cafe Society
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Going to make chili con carne again on Wednesday morning…we haven’t had a good argument about it around here for a while, so I thought I’d start this thread, get some fresh ideas, whip up some kitchen controversy. Here’s what I’m planning…

I’ve got a pound of flank steak, which I’m going to cut into small dice. And a pound of ground beef, which should partially dissolve into and thicken the sauce. I also have a buncha dried New Mexican chiles (thank you, JillGat), which I’m going to stem, seed, and submerge in boiling water and let turn into a pulp.

Heat up a little oil in the big pot, throw in a large chopped onion and saute until transparent. Add the diced steak and ground meat and four or five minced garlic cloves and maybe a couple of chopped-up fresh small hot chiles.

While the meat is browning, season with salt, black pepper, 2 tsp of cumin, 2 tsp of oregano. When brown, add the pulped chiles and a 16-oz can of diced tomatoes and as much water as it takes to rinse out the can.

Cook for hours and hours. If it looks dry, I’ll add…beer? Coffee? Beef stock? Let’s see how I feel.

While the chili’s simmering, I’ll take a couple of handfuls of anasazi beans I’ve soaked overnight and simmer them along with a little onion and garlic. Serve the frijoles alongside, for anyone who likes beans in their chili.

Okay, now, everyone jump in and tell me what I’m doing wrong, and how you would do it better! I promise to give somewhat serious consideration to all serious suggestions.

Bonus respect paid to Texans and others from the Southwest.

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Despite my current location, I am a Texan and a lover of chili: Veteran of a coupla Terlingua World Chili Cook-Offs (as a drunken onlooker, but still…), and worshiper at the shrine of Frank X. Tolbert and Wick Fowler, rest their chili-lovin’ souls.

And I say:

It looks good. Except for the tomatoes. You have very wisely chosen to serve the beans on the side, and I commend you. Now also serve the tomatoes on the side.

You’ve remembered that Chili should consist of two primary ingredients: Meat and Chile. Your chile is true: dried red chile that you are going to soak, simmer, and pulpify. If you can find some more dried chiles to throw in (chile de arbol, for example), so much the better. Your meat is worthy. The other spices you’ve chosen–garlic, onion, comino, and oregano (is it find Mexican Oregano?)–are proper. For extra liquid, I would recommend beer: Lone Star, if you can find it. Shiner Bock’ll do as well.

Otherwise, I have nothing to add. How far is it from here to there, anyway? Do you know how hard it is to find good chili in this corner of North Carolina?

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“is it find Mexican Oregano”

Wow. I don’t think I could screw up like that again if I tried.

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Before I opened this thread I was thinking of dispensing sage advice about using whole chiles, but I see you’ve out-thunk me, Uke. I did this in my most recent chili, and it made a delicious difference. It sounds like you know the routine - break them open, shake out the seeds, toast them for a minute on a flat dry griddle, soak them, and finally blend them into a soupy paste with some of their soaking water - right?

I like using little chunks of stewing beef, too, in my chili. Gives it a nice chew.

Me, I like beer as the moistening agent. Its natural bitterness jibes perfectly with the earthy chile flavor. Plus, cook gets to drink whatever is left over in the bottle!

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If you follow ** Pantellerite’s ** advice, and serve the tomatoes on the side, your chili will most assuredly look dry. I don’t know, perhaps like the Sahara Desert? Yeah, you could add beer to make up for the liquid lost from the 'maters, but why? So that such tasty juice from the poison apples is replaced by a mediocre beer such as ‘Lone Star’? Skip his advice. After all, as he so boldly pointed out, and I quote: I am a Texan. :smiley:

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I’m no great expert on food, but I do have opinions!

A few variations:
I’d be inclined to slice the beef into thin strips instead of dicing it. Some chipotles would give a nice smokiness, if you like that. Or you could try a spoon or two of cocoa powder and call it chile mole.

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I recommended Lone Star because it’s really not worth drinking, but there’s gotta be some kind of use for it!

And if you wish to shy away from beer to liquid-up your chili some, you can reserve some chili-juice before you pulverize the chilis and use it. If you go overboard with the chile-juice, I’d compensate with a bit of Masa Harina, although some find the Über-corn taste a bit much.

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An, my British Columbian friend… we have much to discuss about mole, the purest of ambrosias! It’s so much more than a couple of teaspoons of cocoa mixed with red chile, and should be served with poultry (preferably Turkey)–not beef.

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An, my British Columbian friend… we have much to discuss about mole, the purest of ambrosias! It’s so much more than a couple of teaspoons of cocoa mixed with red chile, and should be served with poultry (preferably Turkey)–not beef.

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Pantellerite is completely correct, especially about the “chili juice” but I have to admit that I have a certain fondness for the impure tomato in my chili. Not gross tomato paste or anything, just a very well seeded and drained chopped up tomato or two.

It’s not authentic, but it’s mmm-mmmm good.

(On the other hand, given that during your last thread I was bustin’ your chops about putting the dreaded beans IN the chili, who’m I to talk?)

Fenris

(PS: And good luck finding Mexican Oregano. I live in Colorado which has a pretty good sized Mexican population. I’ve only seen it once or twice and I’ve never seen it fresh.)

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You can get Mex oregano from Penzey’s, the mail-order spice company in Wisconsin (of all places!). Go to Penzeys.com.

Thanks to all…I believe I WILL stick with the tomato, cause if I leave it out the NEXT Texan will come by and say “Onions? You don’t put ONIONS in chili!” Some purists like to reduce to the bare essentials.

The chilpotle tip is under consideration, although I’m worried that the New Mexican chiles (as opposed to a milder powdered ancho) plus the fresh hot chiles might make the pot hot enough.

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I love making chili, and I always do it differently each time. Usually I make it garbage can style — dump in a zillion cans of stuff plus chopped up peppers, onions & garlic. I’ve started adding cut-up stir-fried beef as well. Soaking peppers overnight is a new one on me. I’ll try it next time. Recommendations?

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I’d second the chipotle recommendation - I like 'em in my chili.

The only thing I’d do different: brown the hell out of the cubes of meat first (which have been salted and peppered, of course - it makes a huge difference), then remove it from the pot and add the onion. The meat isn’t going to brown as well with the onion already in the pot, and you can’t fake the flavor that you get from the browned meat juices which will be picked up by the sauteing onions.

If you have a lot of meat, do it in batches to make sure that it browns nicely. But then you have to watch out that you don’t burn the fond (the brown meat remnants left in the pan) on the second batch of meat.

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Good point. Okay, meat first, onions second, garlic third.

Knowed Out: Not soaking peppers**…soaking dried chiles. Dried Guajillos and Pasillas are available in big bags in my local Brooklyn markets and probably yours, too, although I’m lucky enough to have these New Mexicans on hand. These will take the place of ground chile in my chili. People a few stages lower down the authenticity chain would use commercial “chili powder,” which is ground chile mixed with oregano, cumin, onion and garlic powder, and floor sweepings.
** Peppers…fresh chiles…are at least as controversial in a good Bowl of Red as tomatoes (not as much as beans, though). I’ve put a chopped jalapeno or two in several pots over the years, serrano when I could get 'em, and lately poblano. Some folks roll their eyes at the presence of green anything in the chili.

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I’m with you Knowed. Chili purists are weird. Last time I made chili, I put corn and red potatoes in it, and it was pretty damn good.

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Me - I use beer and coffee as my liquids. Anchos (dried poblanos) are the basis of my chili powder, along with cumin and oregano. I buy 'em by the bag and grind them in a coffee grinder dedicated solely for chiles. I’ll throw in several chopped fresh serranos when I want it firey.

One thing I enjoy is making a thin paste of water and masa flour (corn flour that tortillas are made from) and add it to the chili pot about twenty minutes before I serve it. It thickens it nicely and gives it a hint of tortilla flavor.

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Hey: while I believe that one must grok the concept of pure chili, with groking comes enlightenment. Even as Picasso understood all the nuances of perspective and anatomy, he created masterpieces by disgarding whatever didn’t suit him.

So too is it with chili. Corn? No prob. Potatos? Mmmm…maybe…possibly too starchy: they might soak up some of the heat. But not necessarily evil. I’d try it. Beer? No sweat. Coffee? Ditto. Peppers? Depends on what kind: Green bell peppers would be gross beyond imagining. Fire roasted poblanos? Mmmm-mmm-good. Frankly, once you grok pure chili, you can go beyond it.

As long as you don’t add beans. Beans are the anti-chili. The chaos…the fart-bringers. The evil ones. Beans are to chili as mayo is to ice-cream. They dilute and soak up the heat and flavor and give you NOTHING in return. Except gas. And a weird starchy flavor.

Fenris

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I put all kinds of stuff in my chili. One good combination was spicy brown mustard, Hershey’s chocolate syrup, and some kind of grainy steak seasoning (Montreal?). This in addition to the usual crushed tomatos, chili powder, etc., and in small amounts (there is no sweetness at all from the chocolate syrup).

Recently had some chili that had about 6 ounces of chorizo in it. I was surprised at how big a difference the chorizo made, considering there was two pounds of hamburger. It really thickened it up and made the taste fill your mouth more.

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This thread reminded me of the bag of dried anchos in my cupboard, I had bought them one day because I had never seen them in a store before, and I thought I could think of a use for them later. Anyway, here’s what I’m doing:

I seasoned two pounds of stew beef with salt and pepper and browned it in two tablespoons of bacon fat, and set the browned meat aside for a while. I chopped three small onions (I would have rather had one large or two medium onions, but you work with what you have) and three cloves of garlic and cooked them in the same bacon fat for a while. I also threw in half a dozen chopped thai chilis for heat.

Chili purists may want to stop reading at this point.

Next I added a large can of diced tomatoes and a large can of crushed tomatoes, two tablespoons of cumin (freshly ground). I then discovered, to my shock and horror, that I was out of oregano; so I substituted italian seasoning, reasoning that it has some oregano in it. I was going to use a teaspoon of oregano, but I used two teaspoons of the italian seasoning because it’s only partly oregano.

Anyway.

I removed the stems and seeds from the anchos and tore them into small pieces and threw them into the pot and simmered the mixture for 1/2 hour.

Then I added the browned meat to the pot. It’s simmering right now - after an hour I intend to add a can of kidney beans and simmer for a further half hour.

So, what do you think, how will it turn out?

BTW, I will add a little beer if it starts to look dry :wink:

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Well, I will answer my own question.

It turned out great! No beer necessary either (except to drink, of course).