One Super Bowl, a friend of a friend hosted a party of about 30 people with a chili cook-off tied into it. I thought about what I should do, since we live in Chicago and live in a place where beans are de rigeur in chili, usually. I was going to cook for local tastes and then I said, fuck it, let’s do a Texas red, no beans, no weird ingredients, just straight-up chili. I put in the ingredients I mentioned above, but no cloves or weird spices or anything. Just kept it simple, checked for spicing, may have put in a beef bouillon cube in there to up the umami via its MSG, and adding some adiditional beefy and allium-y flavors to it.
I was expecting it to bomb, but out of ten entries, it finished second, losing out by one vote, and my friend and wife, who were guests, forgot to vote. So, sometimes, keeping it simple does work. And the person who won also had a rather uncomplicated chili – I believe hers had beans, but it was just straight-up chili, not trying to be fancy or clever.
I’ve seen a lot of people talking about smoking the protein first. I haven’t tried it myself, but a chuck roast smoked low and slow could add a lot of complex flavors to a chili. Or even better leftover brisket.
Yeah, I’ve done that variant, and it works well, but, for whatever reason, as much as I like smoked food, I like my chili meat unsmoked. But give it a shot, you may like it. I’ve also done it with just char grilled meat – that works a little better for me, but the end result is more subtle.
The Cooks Illustrated Recipe has been linked to, but since links are annoying here is a very similar recipe.
1 cup beans
6 dried ancho chiles, no stems or seeds
4 dried arbol chiles, no stems or seeds
3 tbsp. masa
2 tsp. dried oregano
2 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. cocoa powder
2.5 cups chicken broth
2 medium onions (about 2c., into .75” dice)
3 small jalapeños, .5” pieces (seeds optional)
3 tbsp. vegetable oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 small can tomatoes (14.5 oz)
2 tsp. light molasses
3.5 pounds roast, trim fat, cut .75” dice
1 bottle mild lager
If using dried beans, soak in salty water for 1h.
Place chiles in skillet, toast 5 mins, put in food processor. Heat oven to 300F.
Add masa, oregano, cumin, cocoa and salt to food processor. Grind. Add onions and jalapeños and 0.5c broth. Grind into salsa.
Add onion mix to 1 tbsp. oil in Dutch oven over medium-high heat for 8 minutes. Add garlic, 1 minute. Add chili paste, tomato, molasses, beans, 2c. Broth.
Heat 1 tbsp oil in skillet, medium-high. Brown half of roast with 1 tsp salt until all sides brown. Deglaze pan with 1/2 bottle lager. Transfer all to Dutch oven. Repeat with roast and beer.
Cook in covered pot in oven for 90-120 Mins.
Final season, let stand 10 mins before serving.
I sometimes wonder what professional chefs think of ATK or Cooks Illustrated. They are the geeks of cooking. Every recipe is a sob story - my recipe was awful, trying these ten things didn’t help, I remembered some forgotten ingredient or technique, now it kicks ass. The recipes are reliably very good and can usually be further improved.
In this case, the author (Andrea Geary) had tasters who did not prefer the additions of Guinness, red wine, coffee added at the beginning, cinnamon, cloves, Coke, brown sugar, MSG, bouillon, Goya Sazon, peanut butter, flour to thicken. Oddly, they used cornmeal instead of masa due to the cost of a 4 lb. bag of masa, apparently unaware it is available in bulk or in much smaller bags.
They also did not like anchovies, mushrooms or “umami bombs”. They liked short rib but found it too much like pot roast and expensive. They tried other meats and liked blade steak or chuck roast best. They didn’t try ground meats or a mix.
Agree there is no chili recipe. Although I think it tastes better and is much more nutritious with lots of beans, onions and tomato, I respect the purists who make it more traditionally. Unfortunately, in my parts well chosen canned tomato is almost always tastier than fresh.
Unless you can get vine-ripened tomatoes that were grown in good soil and the right climate, canned tomatoes are better for cooking. I live in the S.F. Bay Area, which is known for its good produce, but most of the year I can’t get decent tomatoes even at the best stores.
Try some kumatoes. You can eat one grown in January and almost believe it’s August out there.
I’m not the sort who typically recommends copyrighted fruits and vegetables, but as a staunch fresh-tomato freak, I’ve been waiting my whole life for these things.
I may have missed it, but the recipes so far on this thread seem to involve larger quantities of meat. Out of curiosity, do these recipes tend to not work if they are tried with smaller quantities, maybe just enough for one or two servings?
I imagine the recipes would work at nearly any scale, but it’s just that making ten gallons of chili is scarcely more work than making two servings, and so one might as well make lots, and either feed a lot of people, or have leftovers for a long time.
I imagine the recipes would work at nearly any scale, but it’s just that making ten gallons of chili is scarcely more work than making two servings, and so one might as well make lots, and either feed a lot of people, or have leftovers for a long time.
I’ve never tried to make a smaller portion of chili. I guess you could shrink it if you wanted to but a pot of chili is a weekend affair in our house. We’ll eat chili for two meals on Saturday possible with friends over and then eaither eat more chili on Sunday or depending on how we’re feeling turn it into chili cheese dip and eat that for the rest of the day sunday so there are normally 16 meals in a pot of chili.
The biggest problem I think you’ll have getting a smaller portion right is getting the blend of everything. If you scaled back the 5 pounds of meat I put in my chili to just two servings you would only use 1/3 of a pound of meat split between 3 types of chunk and the ground. It would be challenge using 0.1 pounds or less of each type. Further in large batches the difference between 5 or 7 tablespoons is nothing where once you scale it down you’d be adding 2-3 teaspoons of total spices so a little error would make a bigger differencce.
Of course, that is why I hated cooking diner for one when I was single and still ended up cooking for 4 or more and just eating it over time.
Don’t forget the possibility of chili dogs, whose mere existence proves there is a deity who loves us and wants us to be happy.
Since I am the last chili-eater standing in my house, I usually do one pound of beef to one medium onion, 8 ounces of tomato, plus unlimited chile and garlic, plus even more ground chile, a tablespoon of oregano, and a half teaspoon of cumin. This yields enough product for two ample bowls of red, plus several dogs.
Not-so-slight hijack: We usually just use canned chili for chili dogs. Wolf is the preferred brand, but it is impossible to find these days, especially in the 7.5oz cans. Anybody have a tasty alternative? Nalley’s and Tony Packo’s are both right out - the first because it is total crap and the second because it costs an arm, leg and pancreas to get shipped to the Left Coast, even through Amazon.