Anyone have a good recipe for Texas style chili? I’m talking about the very spicy, no beans, minimal tomato, not soupy version that the chili con carne snobs love.
I know some of the foodies on the Dope have strong opinions on the subject. And to head the hijack off at the pass, yes, chili with beans can be tasty, but I have a quality recipe for that and don’t need one, lets keep the debate for another thread.
A good a place as any to start would be right here. Those are links to all the winning recipes from the Terlingua International Chili Championship.
Chunked meat, whatever you want. I use a mix of beef and pork, about 3 lbs. or so. Get the cheaper cuts, because it’s gonna cook low and slow. Get a mess of chilis, to your taste. I use Anaheims and Poblanos mostly. Roast, peel, and dice. Brown the meat in a dutch oven. Drain the fat. Add the chilis, 1 large can stewed tomatoes, 1 finely diced onion, 4 tablespoons Gephardt’s chili powder, 1 bullion cube, cayenne pepper to taste, 2 tablespoon cumin, 2 tablespoon garlic powder, 1 tsp. freshly ground pepper, 1 tsp. seasoning salt, 4 dashes Crystal Sauce, 1 bottle dark beer. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2-3 hours. Crush a large handful of tortilla chips into powder, and stir into the chili. Adjust seasonings and serve.
If you really want to bring the heat, finely dice a habanero chili and add it to the mix.
From The Ultimate Chili Book, by Christopher O’Hara, p. 42:
“Original” Texas Chili
6 ancho [dried poblano] peppers
1 dried chipotle pepper [that’s a smoked jalapeno – and IME to be found only in specialty Mexican grocery stores]
2 tablespoons rendered beef kidney suet [don’t know where you can find that]
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 pounds lean stewing beef, cubed into 1/4-inch pieces
1 teaspoon leaf oregano
1 tablespoon cumin seeds, ground
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon paprika (for the color)
2 tablespoons masa harina [a kind of cornmeal]
Reconstitute the dried peppers by boiling them in water, saving the water for later use. Set peppers aside to dry, then (wearing gloves) slit them, remove stems and seeds, and chop peppers. Heat skillet, melt suet, brown beef cubes. Add pepper water until it covers the beef by an inch. Bring to boil. Simmer 45 minutes. Add remaining ingredients except for masa harina and chipotle pepper. Cook another 45-60 minutes, until the beef is fork-tender. Add more pepper water as liquid evaporates, keeping beef well moistened. Check for thickness, add masa harina as necessary – chili should have the thickness of ketchup. Check the heat – if it’s not hot enough, add the chipotle pepper. Simmer another 30 minutes. Serve with nothing – no rice, no beans, no crackers. Guests are allowed to skim the fat off the top if they so desire.
If that’s not authentic enough for you, go back to p. 5: Pemmican chili.
1 pound dry beef jerky, beaten with a meat tenderizer until stringy and fluffy
up to 1 head of garlic, pounded into/with the meat [no, I’m not making this up]
1 pound rendered beef suet [I’m **really** not making this up]
1-4 tablespoons (or more, if desired) crushed dried chiles, preferably chilipiquins, aka pequin peppers, aka chiles tepins [reputedly the wild ancestor of all chile cultivars; they’re about the size of fresh cranberries; you can find them hanging with the other dried peppers in the ethnic-foods sections of most supermarkets]
Combine prepared jerky with melted fat until consistency of hamburger is attained. Add the peppers. [The recipe doesn’t actually say what to do next; presumably some sort of cooking is required . . .]
Presumably this is what they ate on the cattle drives.
I think I’ll stick with Wendy’s, thank you very much . . .
I’m pretty sure that suet will not be a feature in any of the recipes I try.
silenus, seems like roasting and peeling the chiles might be a bit pointless considering the amount of seasoning and cooking going into this. Does that extra roasted flavor stand out amongst about 7 tablespoons of slice?
Contact the fine folks at Mary of Puddin’ Hill. They’re a fine candy shop, specializing in pecan fruitcakes(forget everything you ever knew about fruitcakes, this place re-defines it), but they’re one of NorthEast Texas’s finest chocolate shops as well. It’s been family owned and operated for several generations and the grandchildren of the founder(who have grandchildren of their own) are running it now. In any event, the ladies make all the chocolates and run the candy/fruitcake side of the business, but Sam, Pud’s husband, he dabbles occasionally. He also helps run the cafe(which specializes in soups and sandwiches) and has put together an excellent mix of ingredients for a Texas Red that they sell in the shop but have never put on the website. IIRC it’s about eight bucks for the mix, which has pretty much everything you need except beef and some tomato sauce and any peppers you want to keep whole/chunked for texture variety. It’s a medium hot chili, so if you want hotter you should add some cayenne or chili powder yourself. The flavor is great though. I’m sure if you call the number they’d be happy to box up some and ship it to you. For all the seasonings you’re getting in the pouch it’s a pretty good price. And there is no suet in the recipe.
Enjoy,
Steven
I think the meat sitting in my fridge might have gone south by the time this plan shakes itself out.
I just wanted to chime in and say “do this!” You will not regret it.
There are some excellent sources in this thread.
I usually just go with Wick Fowler’s 2-Alarm Chili Kit. Cubing the meat rather than grinding is good if there’s time. Mostly beef–a little pork.
Roasting the peppers does make a difference. It gives the red a bit more depth of flavor, IMO.
Here’s the recipe that won me third place at this year’s WA State Championship cookoff;
2 lbs chili grind beef
4 tbls. olive oil
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1 tbls. onion powder
1 tbls. salt
1 tbls. black pepper
2 tbls. cumin
1 tbls. jalapeno powder
1 tsp. habanero powder
1 tbls. New Mexico green chili powder
2 tbls. Mexene chili powder
2 tbls. Pendery’s Fort Worth Light chili powder
1 tbls. MSG
1 tsp. mesquite-flavor liquid smoke
1/3 cup flour
1 15 oz. can tomato sauce
2 cups water
1 cube beef bouillon
1 cube chicken bouillon
Start by heating the oil in a stockpot, then add the beef, salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder, and brown the beef. Once it’s fully browned, mix in the cumin, the chili powders, the MSG, and the liquid smoke. Gradually mix in just enough of the flour to bind all the grease in the pot, then add the tomato sauce, the water, and the bouillion cubes, bring to boil, and simmer, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours until the sauce is thick and the meat is tender.
Nah, they two-day ship via FedEx and it’s quite reasonable for the weight you’re talking about, even if you get a couple packages. Anyway, you can use the meat you have for something else and buy more meat when the seasonings arrive.
Enjoy,
Steven
I will ditto the vote for Wick Fowler - but I omit the red pepper package, double up on the meat by adding an equal amount of cubed pork, and add canned beans (gasp!).
OK, at this point it is no longer Texas Red, but it is a chili that I enjoy.
Do a search for all Cafe Society threads with “chili” in the title. There are at least 33.
This one’s the best.
I don’t think you should use a recipe when you make Texas Red. What I do is, I first read about six of my favorite recipes, plus John Thorne’s great, great chili essay “A Bowl of Red” (reprinted in Serious Pig).
Then, while everything’s fresh in my mind, I brown a pound of cheap beef cut into small dice, along with a pound of ground round, in a big pot. No grease necessary, the beef will provide its own. Add chopped onion and/or chopped fresh chiles (if using either) and chopped garlic (which you HAVE TO use). When done, pour off most of the grease.
Stir in dry seasoning – cumin, oregano, salt, black pepper, crushed red peppers. And ground ancho chile, if that’s what you’re using. I’d rather use toasted, soaked dried chiles (ancho, mulato, guajillo) that I’ve Cuisinarted in some of the soaking liquid. This will be the only liquid in the chili. I gave up using tomatoes. Oh, and chilpotle chile is a good addition…it adds smoky heat.
Simmer for 3-4 hours, allow to rest. Stir in some masa harina if you need to thicken the gravy, or just if you like masa harina. I like to cook red beans and add them towards the end – otherwise this dish is just too MEATY for me – but real Texans insist you serve them on the side, if at all.
Masa harina is actually corn flour, not cornmeal, and will dissolve in your chili much more readily than the latter. You may have to go to an ethnic market to find it, and you’ll end up with a five pound bag that you’ll end up tossing most of unless you decide to make corn torts at home. Dried peppers of all stripe, including chipotle, can now be found in most supermarkets.
Alton Brown recommends plain tortilla chips, crumbled. I imagine that a whir in a blender would work very well.
Texas Red? Wasn’t he the guy who wound up being gunned down by the young Ranger with the big iron on his hip?