Chili

[Noz]

Made a pot full yesterday. Nothing great or special. Hamburger, beans, chopped tomatoes, tomato juice and Williams chili seasoning.

Tasted OK and was quick to make.

 

 

Started thinking about a wife of a friend that I haven't seen in 25 years. She was from Chicago and started her chili with a 3 pound beef roast slow cooked till the meat shredded. She added a bunch of seasoning including real chilies.

 

GOOD stuff.

 

Let's see some recipes that I can try. I don't like 4 alarm chili. I like it "warm" but not painful.

[Muleshoe Bill SASS #67022]

BEANS????

[Subdeacon Joe]

I make a sauce of dried ancho, guajillo, and New Mexico peppers, some garlic, ground cumin, salt, and pepper and a little Trade Winds Taco seasoning mix. Remove the stems and seeds from the peppers, put the peppers and everything else into a non-reactive pot, bring to a boil, simmer for about 5 minutes and let cool. I use a stick blender to blend everything smooth, but a regular blender works, or a food processor. After processing it, run it through a sieve, use a scraper to push all the juice through, discard the left over pulp.

I use it for chili, enchiladas, to season rice, pour over eggs.

For chili, cube up your meat to whatever size you like (I tend towards about a 1/2 inch dice, or run it through a very coarse grinder), put it in a slow cooker with a finely diced onion, minced or grated garlic, and enough of the sauce to cover. Stir about every hour.

[The Shoer 27979]

Noz There are no beans in chili what you made was bean soup

[Alpo]

I use a 5-quart crock pot. Pound of hamburger, pound can of Hunts diced tomatoes, can of Rotel, 4-ounce can of mushroom pieces, handfull of chopped onion, two or three cans of pintos. Sometimes a can of sweet corn. Garlic, oregano (which, believe it or not, goes good in chili), cayenne pepper to taste, peppermill-grind black pepper.

 

Sometimes I use a half-package of McCormick Taco seasoning mix.

 

Yes, BEANS.

 

I don't make mine HOT. Can't do spicy no more. But I've never had anyone turn down second helpings.

 

I make my assistant chef do all the hard work.

[Muleshoe Bill SASS #67022]

This thread has appeared before.....

 

Chili was basicly beef stew back 150 years ago. The recipe commonly used by Texas frontier settlers consisted of dried beef, suet, dried chili peppers and salt, which were pounded together, formed into bricks and left to dry, which could then be boiled in pots on the trail.

My chili - uses 3 different chili peppers ( poblanos, Hatch and some funky pepper that grows out back in the garden), onions, garlic, cilantro, tomatos (not paste), tomateos, venison, chopped beef shoulder, if I feel like it, celery, green onion, jalapenos, bell pepper (I like to toss in green yellow and red from the garden) salt, black pepper, and a beef broth I make in the spring from brisket-pork shoulder bones and goat bones with various spices. It takes about 10 hours over open fire/ coals to cook slow in cast iron pot. (secret ingrediants - tequila for flavor, (alcohol cooks off), toss in some chocolate (NO NOT MILK CHOCOLATE) in last hour or so for some flavor(use Mexican chocolate for mole) then at last minute - a bit of sage and thyme juice of a lime. Serve over wild rice with a glass of Tequila and sit outisde in the cold and enjoy a bowl of the red

[Muleshoe Bill SASS #67022]

Alpo,. no disrespect (it actually sounds good) But what you are making is Sicilian spaghetti sauce. (mushrooms..)

[Subdeacon Joe]

Chili is a stew made of whatever you have on hand, but must include the peppers. Beans are a cheap, and very portable and stable, protein source to stretch out the meat.

Some good reading:

 

http://www.chilicookoff.com/history/history_of_chili.asp

 

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Chili/ChiliHistory.htm

[Muleshoe Bill SASS #67022]

Beans are a source of gas without fracking!

[Subdeacon Joe]

Beans are a source of gas without fracking!

 

They never do that to me, unless I eat a huge amount of them in one sitting.

 

Of course, prunes, which are supposed to clear out the system, are just another dried fruit to me, a good snack food and no purging effect.

 

ADDED:

 

That reminds me - a handful or two of dried cherries make a nice addition.

 

 

[Flashpowder Hal]

1.. "Chili" is a meat sauce, no beans, that's chili con frejoles.

 

2. Mild Chili Recipe:

 

Brown equal amounts of ground Beef and Bison meat. Drain grease. Add Carol Shelby's chili fixin's with water & tomato sauce.

Add onions, garlic, diced green chili peppers & salt to taste, tablespoon of dark molasses or brown sugar, Tiger Sauce if needed.

Simmer 4 - 6 hours.

 

We pour it over shredded cheese and Fritos

[Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172]

I LIKE BEANS.

 

What ever you call it, it is all good eats.

 

Kidney beans, tomato juice and sauce, ground beef, chili powder, onions and Tabasco.

[Alpo]

Alpo,. no disrespect (it actually sounds good) But what you are making is Sicilian spaghetti sauce. (mushrooms..)

 

Sicilians put beans in spaghetti sauce?

 

If you ain't tried it with mushrooms, don't knock it.

[Muleshoe Bill SASS #67022]

well they put those white funky beans in the sauce. Hey its good for what it is.

[DocWard]

I take the semi-easy route. I cube a few pounds of beef to about the size of the tip of my little finger, grab a package or two of Carroll Shelby's chili mix, and a bottle or two of lager. I usually use Sam Adams or Harp. Tried Guinness once, didn't really care for the result. Serve with flour tortillas, shredded cheese and sour cream.

[Duffield, SASS #23454]

If you take that roast out of the pot just before it is shreddable and finish cooking it on the grill over smoldering hickory chips it will add a new dimension to the flavor.

 

My chili mix starts by browning two pounds of ground chuck. I then add:

2 sixteen ounce cans of Ranch Style Beans in Barbeque Sauce,

2 quarts of stewed tomatoes,

1 cup chopped onions

1 package of Two Alarm Chili seasioning

 

simmer for 1/2 hour. Serve with corn tortillas or corn chips, shredded cheese and sour cream.

 

 

 

 

Duffield

[Chantry]

6-8 pounds ground beef

2-3 packages of breakfast sausage links chopped up

2 large (66 oz) jugs of tomato sauce

1 small can of tomato paste

3-4 onions chopped up

3-4 red bell peppers chopped up

3-4 chile peppers chopped up

The following seasonings: ground black pepper, ginger, garlic, ground tumeric, lots of cajun seasoning, italian seasoning, tabasco and ground cloves, which is good for a sustained spicy that kicks in 5 minutes after you start eating, but use the ground cloves sparingly, a little goes a very long way.

 

Combine the tomato sauce and paste in the large pot and place on stove set to low. Start browning the ground beef adding to the pot as it becomes brown. Meanwhile chop sausage, onions, peppers and add to the pot. Add seasonings to taste, I like mine very spicy. Stir everything together, put lid on and wander off. Stir occasionally during the day. I let it cook on low for about 6 hours or so. The extra gets frozen and I usually get at least 12-14 meals out of a pot.

[Subdeacon Joe]

A DISH OF ODDIMENTS OF MEATS, WELL SEASONED WITH A SUFFICENCY OF
SAVORY SPICES, AND MESSED FORTH WITH INDIAN BREAD, USEFUL FOR FEEDING
A NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHEN THERE IS NOT A SUFFICENT QUANTITY OF ANY ONE
MEAT TO MAKE A MEAL

Or Spicy Meat Stew, if ya wanna short name……

Get your fire going and stoke it good so you will have a decent amount of coals to work with.
Might as well hang your kettle over this to start getting water hot, too.
While the fire is burning down, cut up your meat - beef, pork, chicken, lamb, whatever -
in about 3/8" dice and dredge it in seasoned flour. Cut up an onion or two and crush & paste some
garlic (crush it with a knife, sprinkle it with salt, and use you knife to smear it into a paste).
By now you should have enough coals to work with, so pull some out of the fire - enough to make a
bed about the size of your dutch oven (12" works good), but leave a space about 4 or 5 inches in the
center clear of coals. Set your oven over the coals. Add some grease of some sort - oil, shortening,
bacon grease, and get your onions going. When they are soft, but not brown, add the meat.
Stir it about some. Add powdered cumin, ground black pepper, a little ground coriander, chili powder,
and
a little each of hot, sweet, bittersweet, and smoked paprika, and a
touch of chipotle chili powder (vary spices to suit yourself of course).
Stir it around some. Check and adjust seasoning. Add a little chicken
stock, stir. Put the lid on
and put some coals on the lid. Set a slightly smaller oven (10") on top of that to start
heating
up, throw some chopped bacon into that one. Have the lid for the 2nd
oven sitting on something clean and put some coals on top of it so it
will get hot.

While it is heating take about 3 cups of cornmeal, one cup of flour, some salt, a little baking
powder, a little baking soda, and mix them together. Add one beaten egg and about 2 cups of
buttermilk - if you don't have buttermilk you can use 2 cups regular milk clabbered with about 2 or 3
Tbs of cider vinegar. Mix this up into a batter. Make sure that the bacon in the 2nd oven has rendered
out a lot of the fat (you don't HAVE to use bacon, you can use Crisco, butter, oil, but you need some
hot fat). Swirl the oven so the grease coats the bottom and at least an inch up the sides. Pour in the
batter and put the lid on. About every 10 minutes, give the oven a quarter turn clockwise and the lid a
quarter turn counter-clockwise, this helps even out hot spots. Cornbread should be done in 30 to 40
minutes. And the meat will be done about the same time as the cornbread. At some point about half
way through cooking the cornbread, you will want to check on the meat.

If there is too much liquid you can either thicken it up with some couscous, roux, or cornstarch, or set
up more coals to put the cornbread on, add some coals under the meat and let the sauce reduce with the
lid off. Towards the end of the cooking, your water should be boiling so you can make your coffee.
Use your favorite method. Turn the cornbread out of the oven, cut it for serving, butter it if you want. I
like to crumble it in the bottom of my bowl and mess out the meat on top of it. And have a chunk of it
on the side with honey or molasses for dessert. N.B. you will need to check your coals from time to
time during the cooking to make sure you keep your heat. If you have cornbread left over, split it in
half the next morning and fry it up in the fat from the bacon or sausage that you cooked for breakfast.
Good way to do biscuits, too.

[Yul Lose]

Chili recipe

 

2 lbs bison roast or steak cubed and browned in skillet

I can Rotello tomatoes

1 can 8oz tomato sauce

6 jalapeño peppers with seeds and veins removed and discarded, diced

2 tomatillos cored and diced

1 onion diced

1 tablespoon soup base, I use Penzies

I box Carrol Shelby Chili Kit

1 cup water

 

Mix all ingredients in crock pot and cook on high for 4 hours and then low till served. Add masa mixture in chili kit to thicken and 1 can pinto beans if desired.

 

1 teaspoon powdered ginger to eliminate gas if beans are used. Don't laugh it works.

[Curley Fryes]

Alpo,. no disrespect (it actually sounds good) But what you are making is Sicilian spaghetti sauce. (mushrooms..)

Us Italians call in gravy.

[Utah Bob #35998]

Some people like beans in their Chili.That''s fine. I prefer the more traditional fare you'll find at a chuck wagon cookoff.

I don't use ground meat in mine. I use cubed, good quality beef. The meat cooks slowly for several hour and the spices are dumped in with about an hour to go. On a heat scale of 1-5, I like it about at 3. Too much peppers tend to burn out the rich flavor.

I can't give out the recipe, what with NSA watching the Internet.

[Oklahoma Dee]

Chilli has always had beans from where I come from. I guess all things change according to what you can afford or have on hand.

[Alpo]

Yeah, what Bob said. I've always kinda considered the "12 alarm chili" thing as "if we add some MORE peppers, it'll be so hot that people won't notice how crappy it tastes. They'll just taste the hot".

 

If it has a good flavor it does not need to burn.

[Anvil Al #59168]

NO BEANS.

 

Beans don't belong in Chili.

 

 

 

Even at the World Championship of chilil.

The two main rules are.

 

RED MEAT. NO BEANS.

[The Shoer 27979]

About 9 years ago we had a party so I made some chili with NO BEANs for it, my oldest son being the smart ass he is, said Dad this chili ain't hot i say No it's not suppose to be hot I had made it mild for some other people that were there. So a couple years later after he had joined the Marines he called and said he and his wife were coming up to visit. Me being the person he learn to be a smart ass from and felling a little vindictive decided to make some chili for him and his bride.Anyway I made 2 batches, 1 was mild like before and the other I made special just for him. For his batch of chili I started off putting on 2 pars of rubber gloves, I then preceded to cut up 10 habenaro peppers and 4 of those little red peppers about the size of your pinky I think they are called ghost peppers. Put every thing in his batch of chili ,seeds and all. He scooped out a bowlful, sat down to eat, as he took that first spoonful and you could see the tears in his eyes as he said "thought you were going to make some hot chili". It took him an hour to finish that bowl of chili but when he did, I offered him seconds, that he declined, I don't know why. Every once he a while he will say to me hey Pops why don't you make some of that week ass chili you made me that time.

[Subdeacon Joe]

Yeah, what Bob said. I've always kinda considered the "12 alarm chili" thing as "if we add some MORE peppers, it'll be so hot that people won't notice how crappy it tastes. They'll just taste the hot".

 

If it has a good flavor it does not need to burn.

 

Yep. If all you get is "HOT!" why bother? I like just enough heat to make me think it's almost too hot.

 

Just like a campfire. You can stoke it up, have a big blaze, and sit way the hell back where you can't enjoy it. But if you build a nice, modest small or medium sized fire, everyone can gather round it, talk to each other, and enjoy.

[Yul Lose]

When you take the seeds and veins out of jalapeños they become very mild with no heat. That's the reason I use them and they add flavor without the heat.

[Subdeacon Joe]

Gotta love this forum system - this is a Hot Topic!

[Ellie Mae Mohr]

Must have been soup day yesterday. I made my first pot of the season veggie soup. Pretty tasty!

 

Chili, I make about the same as you. Ground beef, Brooks Chili Hot Beans, onions, spices, a sprinkle of sugar, and either tomato juice or sauce depending on the thickness I want for that particular batch. The thicker one made with sauce is excellent to use on chili-cheese nachos.

[Bucky Buscadero, SASS #73085]

I make a sauce of dried ancho, guajillo, and New Mexico peppers, some garlic, ground cumin, salt, and pepper and a little Trade Winds Taco seasoning mix. Remove the stems and seeds from the peppers, put the peppers and everything else into a non-reactive pot, bring to a boil, simmer for about 5 minutes and let cool. I use a stick blender to blend everything smooth, but a regular blender works, or a food processor. After processing it, run it through a sieve, use a scraper to push all the juice through, discard the left over pulp.

 

I use it for chili, enchiladas, to season rice, pour over eggs.

 

For chili, cube up your meat to whatever size you like (I tend towards about a 1/2 inch dice, or run it through a very coarse grinder), put it in a slow cooker with a finely diced onion, minced or grated garlic, and enough of the sauce to cover. Stir about every hour.

 

Joe's recipe is much like mine (except for the Trade Winds Taco Seasoning which i have no idea what that is or why you would add it to an already decent looking recipe). As far as the BEANS controversy goes - they were probably used often on the trail as they were easily portable and a good source of protein. No sources of info to back me up on that as it is late and I don't really give a flip as to supporting info at the moment so whatever. Tomatoes though - very popular in modern chili but doubtful fresh tomatoes were readily available on the trail and used in "trail" or "authenticate" style chili. If you like them fine, but try making a batch with NO tomatoes - you may be surprised with how well it turns out. Just my 2 cents, no doubt there are many differing opinions. Probably one of the best things about chili - the endless variations!

Bucky

[Warden Callaway]

When available, Mary starts by boiling down a section of deer neck. Then forks the meat from the bones and goes from there.

[Utah Bob #35998]

25° here. I could use a bowl of hot breakfast chili. I guess I`ll settle for huevos rancheros.

Or biscuits and gravy.

Or both.

[Jack Ash]

Grandma used to serve a weak meaty chili over rice. Wish I could taste it one more time.

[Krazy Kajun]

On a related note (pun intended) a good bean fart will drop a normal sized midget in an elevator.

[Noz]

Interesting!

As expected the chili purists came forth.

Unexpected. The several references to Carol Shelby Chili Seasonings. Never heard of that before. I will look for it.

Some good variations on the basic that I will try.

Chili without tomato? Might be worth a spin.