Bland Greek Chili? You obviously have only eaten skyline- my favorite Greek Chili is Rudy’s here in Toledo, They serve it as a seperate chili, and on dogs as coney sauce… over spaghetti is less typical and is known as “Chili Mac”, here. So you really think Greek Coney Dogs and Chili Mac have never escaped our region here? What about skyline? That’s a fairly widespread franchise although it’s the worst example of Ohio Chili.
A lot of them were saying incorrectly though by using the diacritical n. It’s a hyper-foreignism.
Bland food?
What the hell did I say two posts up? I would adapt, this basic recipe with a bit more spice and chiles. But I’ll tell ya what, just by this basic recipe, untouched, Ohio chili is a lot less bland and more spicy than any Texas Chili…
* 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
* 2 onions, chopped
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 2 tablespoons chili powder
* 2 tablespoons sweet paprika
* 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
* 1 teaspoon ground allspice
* 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
* 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
* 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
* 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
* 1 1/2 pounds whole beef chuck cubed
* Kosher salt
* 1 6-ounce can tomato sauce
* 1 cup diced tomatoes
* 1 bay leaf
* 2 tablespoons chopped unsweetened chocolate
* 1 tablespoon cider or red wine vinegar
* 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
* Freshly ground pepper
[Correction]But I’ll tell ya what, just by this basic recipe, untouched, Ohio chili is a lot less bland and more spicy than any** one note** Texas Chili…[/correction/]
That’s my point. Only Chuy, I think his name is, pronounced it right. It’s like nails on a chalkboard when I hear people that are supposed to be food experts say habañero.
If I were a contestant, and a judge commented on the habeñero pepper in my dish, I would take the plate away from them and walk away.
As far as I could tell from just catching up, only one team had beans.
I was also shocked that any team woudl use beans. I hate chili and have never cooked it, and grew up in Virginia ferchrissakes and even I know better than that.
T’were it me, I’d probably pick one or two people on the team to be “front of house” and send them up to bed. It only takes one to sleep on their feet stirring chili, and everyone can agree on the flavor profile before snooze time.
I hope they put up the recipe and a better description of the ghost chili winning dish. I’m very interested to know how anybody uses that beyond “place two scrids and a scrap into a five-gallon drum of chili.”
Furthermore, if this challenge was about using chiles effectively in an authentic texas chili cook-off, I didn’t see any team stage and layer their chile powder or fresh chiles. Every Texas chili competitor knows that you start off with a chili blend and let that cook out then you stage in a final “awakening” and “refreshing” chile blend at the end of cooking. Also, it seems like most of them had way overcooked their meat to the point that it had no coherence or structure. There should have been distinct and discernible cubes of meat with a bit of texture.
If that’s what you consider spicy, well…
Don’t forget to cut the enormous heat by dumping a half pound of cheese on top of it.
Says the guy who has never had a bowl of spicy, Rudy’s Greek chili, or even spicier, Packo’s Hungarian chili in the Glass City… no cheese, either. They both contain beans however, but that’s as easy as leaving them out, you actually think I was advocating for someone to make Skyline Chili Mac? Hell, It’s called Top Chef, it’s about making the best of any food. And I think the flavors of Ohio Chili represent some of the best in the nation.
And what was strange is they showed all the teams without bean in the chili tell the crowd that theirs is REAL chili because is doesn’t have beans. But there wasn’t a single comment from the judges or the crowd about the wrongness of the beans in the one that had it. I guess the top and bottom were so far apart, the beans became a non issue.
IIRC, the losing quickfire entry contained raw Anaheim chile.
And now, you’ll have to excuse me. I need to soak my dry beans for the pot of chili I’m making tomorrow…
~VOW
Okay, so were those some of the more annoying, vapid hostesses you’ve ever seen? Really?
I wanted the guy with the weird sticking-up hair to go home. That cigar “appetizer” looked disgusting. And apparently it didn’t taste very good, either. Yuk.
The couples just seemed so incredibly young to me. And the utter lack of sophistication within the context of their obvious wealth was jarring.
I’ve also just never understood the appeal of these progressive dinners. “Let’s all go to A’s house, and have some yummy food and wine, and then just when the conversation gets good and we start to relax let’s all jump into our cars and drive to B’s house, where we’ll add to both the carb and alcohol loads, before we drive again to the final destination where we will finally be forced to admit that we are incapable of maintaining any conversation without the dependable crutch of arguing over the best route to the next destination.”
Wheeeeeee! ! !
I actually thought the cigars were a cute idea badly executed. But then maybe “cute” is a bit below the bar for Top Chef. (Or perhaps we wish it were.)
Did one contestant just admit * on national television * that she’s aware of, and completely ignoring, a warrant for her arrest in the state to which she’s just willingly flown in order to compete in this contest? Is this like “Survivor” where they don’t know where they’re going until they get there?!?
I have to say though, I don’t think all the sleep deprivation adds to the show. It makes for grumpy chefs not doing their best, and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe one time, yeah, to test their mettle and show who will remain a team player despite the exhaustion. But the day-upon-day building of the sleep deficit is beginning to feel a bit like the “Saw” franchise.
That cigar thing looked like it needed to be flushed.
And the diver scallop on a corn puree is so DATED.
~VOW
RE: Lack of sophistication on the hosts’ parts.
This particular area of Dallas (Highland Park) is well known for being where the rich people live. George W Bush and Chuck Norris have homes there, as do several oil families. It’s also an older part of town, so there’s a lot of ‘old money’. As such, it also attracts the nouveau riche.
These couples were very obviously new money types. If they had somewhat less money, they’d be in Richardson or Denton in nice suburban or ex-urban enclaves. Unfortunately, they were also what I will politely refer to as ‘douchebags’. There are lots of friendly, polite, non-douchey people in Highland Park. Unfortunately, none of them were shown in this episode.
Many of the actual old money families would have been used to fine dining but probably wouldn’t have minded a traditional Texas BBQ, either. And probably would have focused more on the actual food than how “pretty” it looked.
Also, it struck me that the wives were all pretty much trophy wives and may very well have been in a pseudo-audition for a Real Housewives kind of thing.
I think the best part of this season has been Hugh Acheson’s blog.* To whit:
From: Chuy's Dad Can Do Anything
ETA: Forgot to say, Did anyone else notice that they guy said “* My * wedding cake was a big gummi bear” instead of * our *. Wasn’t that a bit odd?
*Did somebody say that already? If so, +1.
Those people were not a good representative for Dallas. To some, those houses might look fairly small, but since it’s such a small area, houses go for something like $350 a square foot. But, at least two of the women (the two sisters) are not anything close to trophy wives–they have big-time family money: http://www.dmagazine.com/Home/D_CEO/2009/November_December/Inside_the_Schlegel_Family_Dynasty.aspx
I think Bush lives in Preston Hollow though. Almost Highland Park, but fewer McMansions for now.
The food did look boring, but I think they were trying not to offend the hosts. In general, fancy Dallasites prefer more traditional food. There never seems to be much cutting-edge culinary delights here, but we will follow once a trend has started.
That made me think he was referring to his Groom’s Cake which is often something silly pertaining to something the groom is into. My friend had a Batman groom’s cake at his wedding.
Didn’t know that. But they’re still nouveau riche (and it still came across as giant douche vs shit sandwich).
I guess the Canadian thing came up in the episode, but I was having a hard time telling the families apart.
True. I tend to lump Preston Hollow, University Park, and Highland Park together. That’s not entirely fair, but the whole area is overflowing with money and power.
The worst part of the episode wasn’t that their tastes were bad (debatable without actually trying the food) but that they seemed to focus extensively on how it looked. And it wasn’t just about liking ‘traditional’ food as being completely unadventurous eaters.
I understand restrictions are fair and some people have likes and dislikes, but at the first house, the list included: no cilantro, no bell peppers, avoid foods that might cause bad breath, and avoid foods that might get stuck in teeth. In Texas? Really? You’re on a show with a bunch of pretty good chefs and want THAT to be America’s impression of you? In Dallas or in Texas in general, there’s hardly any ‘traditional’ dishes that don’t have something found on that list. Kudos to the winners for working around it.