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So, today I made chili. Well, I'm making chili. It's currently in the crock pot filling the house with its olfactory stimulating awesomeness.
I'd threatened to post the recipe, and am now following through on that threat.
The ingredients are pretty simple, and quite frankly, are never the same twice or from person to person, but there is a general formula, which is easily modified if you prefer meatless or southwestern (no beans).
This makes about 6.5 quarts, because that's how big my crockpot is and this fills it to about 3/4 of an inch from the top.
One large can of tomato sauce.
One large can of diced tomatos.
One 16oz. can of tomato paste.
One 40oz. can of light red kidney beans
One 26oz. can of dark red kidney beans
Two to three pounds 80% lean ground beef.
One yellow onion.
One red, one orange, and one yellow bell pepper.
Assorted peppers. Today I used serrano, white, red, and anaheim chilis, and jalapenos. Depending on the time of year, I've used mex/thai, hungarian hot, and habenero as substitutes for other types that weren't in season. Harris Teeter has an entire section of the produce dept. devoted to peppers (not just hot, but they have a very good selection of hot types in that bit).
I started by pulling out the crock pot (6.5qt) and putting the contents of all the cans in it. You can subsitute whole peeled, crushed, or stewed tomatos for diced, but I prefer the chunks of tomato you get with diced (I used to use whole, but they'd tend to be a PITA to stir and would sometimes explode as well). Add 3 cups of water. Stir it all up until it's nice and uniform.
Next, I cut up the peppers. How many, which types, and the ratio of peppers (to each other) will determine how much flavor and how hot your chili ends up. I prefer a medium heat with lots of flavor over so hot your tongue commits suicide. Be careful with serrano peppers. They are small, but they are fairly intense flavor wise, and I never go above three in my 6.5 qt crock pot. Too many and your chili will tend to taste like smoke from a wood fire smells. Habeneros are a pepper of last resort for me. They add a ton of heat, and I won't put more than one in mine. Mileage varies, as always, and peppers of the same type can vary for flavor vs. heat depending on age and season. I add the red, orange, and yellow bell peppers for flavor and color. With the exception of the red chili, the other peppers I used today were all a shade of green (even the white chilis are just a really pale (almost white even) shade of green). Next I cut up the onion and add it. I rinse all veggies under cold water in a collander before I put them in the tomato and bean base. I stir after each veggie type gets added. Some people don't like or have trouble of a digestive nature with onions. If you don't like or can't eat onions, don't use 'em. Also, refrigerate the onion prior to cutting for at least an hour and it won't make you cry.
At this point, you have what could easily be an extremely flavorful vegetarian chili. Just add more beans, onions, and bell peppers until you're about an inch from the top and let cook on low for 6+ hours or on high for 3 - 5 hours. Or if you're into tofu, I suppose you could commit heresy and make me have to kill you by adding it.
If you're not a vegetarian type, it's time to brown the beef. I use 80% lean because you want some fat in the meat. I find that about 70% of the fat liquifies and ends up going down the drain after browning and draining the beef. You want some fat in the beef post cooking, and cooking with 15% or less fat ground beef leaves you with almost none. I season the beef while browning with crushed red pepper, fresh ground black pepper, salt, chili powder, garlic powder, and mesquite flavoring. I continuously stir the beef until it's all brown, then let it simmer in it's own juices on low for a good 10 minutes. Once drained, most of the spices and fat are gone, but the beef retains the flavor (the lower the fat content, the less it tends to retain, which is why I use a higher fat percentage ground beef than I would otherwise). If you prefer your chili sans beans, you'll want to use another 1 - 1.5 lbs. of ground beef in place of the beans. Some people prefer pork or chicken. Use whatever you prefer.
The really adventerous among you could use fresh tomatos for the base instead of canned, but preparation takes a good half hour or more as is and making tomato sauce by hand is somewhere way down on my list of things I feel like doing.
I do things in the order I do because this way, I only create a few dirty dishes. I use one knife, one cutting board, one big spoon (I use this to stir the veggie base, and then the ground beef during cooking, and the final chili once everything is prepped and mixed), a collander, and the crock pot.
I serve in a bowl with sour cream and shredded sharp cheddar cheese. How much cheese and sour cream depends on how hot it ends up coming out, The fat in the cheese and sour cream will absorb the capsaicin and lessen the heat while adding flavors of their own. The chili itself is very low fat before you dump the dairy products in it, and the high veggie content makes it pretty good for you as well. Chili over pasta is also pretty damned good.
This recipe can easily be varied to taste and if you replace hot peppers and beans with mushrooms, basil, thyme, paprika, garlic, and a few other bits, you've got a spaghetti sauce that didn't come from a jar, and tastes pretty damn good too (and if you like meat in your spag sauce, you'll want to spice the meat differently during cooking prior to adding to the sauce as well of course).
I'd threatened to post the recipe, and am now following through on that threat.
The ingredients are pretty simple, and quite frankly, are never the same twice or from person to person, but there is a general formula, which is easily modified if you prefer meatless or southwestern (no beans).
This makes about 6.5 quarts, because that's how big my crockpot is and this fills it to about 3/4 of an inch from the top.
One large can of tomato sauce.
One large can of diced tomatos.
One 16oz. can of tomato paste.
One 40oz. can of light red kidney beans
One 26oz. can of dark red kidney beans
Two to three pounds 80% lean ground beef.
One yellow onion.
One red, one orange, and one yellow bell pepper.
Assorted peppers. Today I used serrano, white, red, and anaheim chilis, and jalapenos. Depending on the time of year, I've used mex/thai, hungarian hot, and habenero as substitutes for other types that weren't in season. Harris Teeter has an entire section of the produce dept. devoted to peppers (not just hot, but they have a very good selection of hot types in that bit).
I started by pulling out the crock pot (6.5qt) and putting the contents of all the cans in it. You can subsitute whole peeled, crushed, or stewed tomatos for diced, but I prefer the chunks of tomato you get with diced (I used to use whole, but they'd tend to be a PITA to stir and would sometimes explode as well). Add 3 cups of water. Stir it all up until it's nice and uniform.
Next, I cut up the peppers. How many, which types, and the ratio of peppers (to each other) will determine how much flavor and how hot your chili ends up. I prefer a medium heat with lots of flavor over so hot your tongue commits suicide. Be careful with serrano peppers. They are small, but they are fairly intense flavor wise, and I never go above three in my 6.5 qt crock pot. Too many and your chili will tend to taste like smoke from a wood fire smells. Habeneros are a pepper of last resort for me. They add a ton of heat, and I won't put more than one in mine. Mileage varies, as always, and peppers of the same type can vary for flavor vs. heat depending on age and season. I add the red, orange, and yellow bell peppers for flavor and color. With the exception of the red chili, the other peppers I used today were all a shade of green (even the white chilis are just a really pale (almost white even) shade of green). Next I cut up the onion and add it. I rinse all veggies under cold water in a collander before I put them in the tomato and bean base. I stir after each veggie type gets added. Some people don't like or have trouble of a digestive nature with onions. If you don't like or can't eat onions, don't use 'em. Also, refrigerate the onion prior to cutting for at least an hour and it won't make you cry.
At this point, you have what could easily be an extremely flavorful vegetarian chili. Just add more beans, onions, and bell peppers until you're about an inch from the top and let cook on low for 6+ hours or on high for 3 - 5 hours. Or if you're into tofu, I suppose you could commit heresy and make me have to kill you by adding it.
If you're not a vegetarian type, it's time to brown the beef. I use 80% lean because you want some fat in the meat. I find that about 70% of the fat liquifies and ends up going down the drain after browning and draining the beef. You want some fat in the beef post cooking, and cooking with 15% or less fat ground beef leaves you with almost none. I season the beef while browning with crushed red pepper, fresh ground black pepper, salt, chili powder, garlic powder, and mesquite flavoring. I continuously stir the beef until it's all brown, then let it simmer in it's own juices on low for a good 10 minutes. Once drained, most of the spices and fat are gone, but the beef retains the flavor (the lower the fat content, the less it tends to retain, which is why I use a higher fat percentage ground beef than I would otherwise). If you prefer your chili sans beans, you'll want to use another 1 - 1.5 lbs. of ground beef in place of the beans. Some people prefer pork or chicken. Use whatever you prefer.
The really adventerous among you could use fresh tomatos for the base instead of canned, but preparation takes a good half hour or more as is and making tomato sauce by hand is somewhere way down on my list of things I feel like doing.
I do things in the order I do because this way, I only create a few dirty dishes. I use one knife, one cutting board, one big spoon (I use this to stir the veggie base, and then the ground beef during cooking, and the final chili once everything is prepped and mixed), a collander, and the crock pot.
I serve in a bowl with sour cream and shredded sharp cheddar cheese. How much cheese and sour cream depends on how hot it ends up coming out, The fat in the cheese and sour cream will absorb the capsaicin and lessen the heat while adding flavors of their own. The chili itself is very low fat before you dump the dairy products in it, and the high veggie content makes it pretty good for you as well. Chili over pasta is also pretty damned good.
This recipe can easily be varied to taste and if you replace hot peppers and beans with mushrooms, basil, thyme, paprika, garlic, and a few other bits, you've got a spaghetti sauce that didn't come from a jar, and tastes pretty damn good too (and if you like meat in your spag sauce, you'll want to spice the meat differently during cooking prior to adding to the sauce as well of course).
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From:
no subject
And I have to just shake my head, because the kind of chili I am used to contains purely meat and gravy. The gravy, of course, is a secret recipe that consists of at least two different types of chili powders (one brown, one red) and myriad other spices all ground up so fine that the gravy is smooth.
But yours sounds good too. Just not award winning ;)
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
In NM we may also add green chile to chile con carne (they look like Anaheims when fresh but are usually much warmer, used as chopped frozen chile most of the year, and as fresh roasted and chopped during the late summer and early fall).
There's a recipe called green chile stew that's basically meat (any of beef, pork, lamb, poultry cut in chunks), green chile, stock, onion/garlic/cumin, potatoes, and tomatoes (optional). Very simple, and addicting. Santa Feans may add other foo-foo stuff, but that's not what's eaten in the rest of the state.
From:
no subject
Oh, and my step-mother makes the most awesome Green Chili in the world too, but then I am biased because I would ALSO say her beans are second to none. Of course, if you saw the preparation, the calculation, the absolute perfection she expects out of all of her competition dishes, you might agree. And if you tasted it, well, you would have no doubt.
As a side note, my father won the NM State Championship one year, but he did not get to be the state champion because he was from Texas. That's how things go.
From:
no subject
I won a cavers' chili cookoff once with "Christmas Chili" that included both red and green chile (NM spelling of course) in the mix.
From:
no subject
But don't believe it. I mean, the recipe is probably good, but it is not what she cooks. She would never give that recipe out. Not even to me. Even if she was drunk.
And chile vs. chili. Not sure of the difference. Other than if I was talking about the pepper I would say "chile" and if I was talking about the powder I would say "chili." But the, remember, I am from Texas and chili is pronounced Chill-I in the cookin' circles around here.
From:
no subject
Chile is the vegetable, as well as sauces made from red or green chile.
A NM "bowl of red chile" is literally red chile "sauce" with chunks or strips of meat added, usually beef, pork or lamb/mutton.
A bowl of green is usually green chile stew with meat (add chicken to the above list), potatoes and maybe tomatoes.
Sounds like your dad cooks New Mexican as well as Tex-Mex, but if you are further interested in New Mexican cooking, look for the cookbook "The Feast of Santa Fe," as it's the best overall NM cookbook. Amazon:
http://tinyurl.com/8sk9p
Another is "Foods of New Mexico", available on the Web or as a cookbook:
http://tinyurl.com/7rdud