Chili - I am in the no-beans in my Chili side of things. Competitive Chili Cook-Off rules in Texas forbid the use of any solids other than meat. Onion and Garlic must be in the form of powder. I use the real veggies myself. Beans are OK if you like them, but that Hamburger Helper looking stuff pictured last month with the pasta is not real Chili!
Long form I call it "chili" with no beans and "chili beans or chili with beans" if it has beans, naturally.
Short form both are "chili"
But no tomatoes. Carmelized onions and mashed garlic or minced garlic is fine with me.
The pot I made Friday for Saturday's chili social at church was not quite as good as last weeks. Ifollowed the sme basic idea but tweaked a few things. A little more of a few spices and a little less of a few others. In the end I think it was slightly over spiced. The extra of some was more than the less of the others. It's still good and I had some today after another day of mellowing... I have chili for lunch the rest of the week.
This is the basic recipe I followed (made up)
Two large onions, diced, and slow cooked on low heat to carmelize. I used a mix of bacon fat and avocado oil. Avocado oil doesn't taste like avocados. It's just higher smoking point vegetable oil (that's better than the seed oils for you). I didn't have that much bacon fat on hand so used both. Added a couple tablespoons of fresh minced garlic towards the end.
Added the beans. Use whatever you like. I like black beans and white beans so used 5 cans of black beans and 4 cans of navy beans. Total 9 cans
Add spices
1 tablespoon "Spice Chili Lime" (Something I found at Costco -- a cayenne lime seasoning that's good on most things)
1 tablespoon "Kinder's -- The Taco blend"
2 Tablespoons Ground Cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 tablespoons yellow curry powder
1 teaspoon Madras Curry Powder
1 teaspoon chinese szechuan chili powder (this is more a numbing or tingling agent than hot which is why its only a teaspoon)
2 tablespoons smoked paprika
5 tablespoons chili powder (I had two different ones on hand, both from McCormick, one is Dark Chili Powder, and one is Chili Powder (which is a darker color than the dark chili powder one). I put in 3 of on and 2 of the other since I had both
1 teaspoon white pepper
4 tablespoons mexican oregano
1 heaping tablespoon Korean Gochujang -- this is a red chili paste common in Korean cooking and bibimbap
A couple bay leaves
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 -- 1 1/2 cups water, heated, with 4-5 beef bullion cubes dissolved
I had the following in the refrigerator -- both from the asian store, so I put 2 tablespoons of each in
---chili oil with fermented soybeans
---fermented chili bean paste
a teaspoon or so of habanero hot sauce. The first time I used the El Azteca green as they was sitting by the stove.
ETA: I also added 3-4 tablesppons cocoa powder. I used a mix of raw cacao powder and nice dark dutched cocoa powder
3-4 tablespoons sugar, or agave syrup, or honey, or whatever you want. In sauces, a little sugar balances out the sour of the hot. (This is why spaghetti often has fruit juice or sweet wine or carrot juice or grated carrots or honey or sugar)
Once that was cooking I brownded and crumbled 6 pounds of ground meat. Use what you have or like. I used 2.5 pounds ground beef (ground chuck), 1.5 pounds fresh ground pork, an 2 pouds of the cheap frozen ground turkey. All browned and crumbled together. In chili you can't really tell what ind of meat it is and the frozen turkey 1lb logs are only $2 each vs $4-5 for ground beef and just udner that for the pork.
Mix the ground meat in and then I turned off the heat and let it sit over night. Next morning I put it in the fridge. That evening I took it out and warmed it up and served it. It was quite good. A bit more robust in flavor due to some of the small amounts of the non-standard spices like curry. The Chili powder and cumin and paprika and stuff were the overwhelming normal spices but a little of the rest gave it some depth. It was one of the better ones I've made in the last few years. It had a nice warm after taste but did not bite you up front.
Note above some are tablespoons and some are only teaspoons!
The amount given above filled our 8 qt hexclad stock pot.
