Winter's Finally Here - Time To Make Some Chili !!!

[LuxLuthor]

Don't worry, there is 3 kinds of meat, several types each of tomatoes, beans, peppers, etc. Combinations of a number of specific chili, cumin, paprika powders, etc.

Recipe has evolved over the years, but last 3-4 years it has remained mostly the same because I have not been able to make it better. I look at any new respected recipes...having seen many hundreds, and tried quite a few to see the various flavors. There are many common items and techniques for making great chili, but I have some ingredients that I have never seen in any recipe. I agree with Iron that you must let it sit a day, and reheat again for flavors to evolve.

It seems to keep its flavor amazingly well when vacuum packed and frozen. In those cold winter days, especially when snowing, really great chili satisfies your soul unlike no other food.

 

[verbie]

Not a chilli lover but Lux just made me want to eat some

 

[Nitroz]

When you're ready to release the secret of your chili please send me a PM with specific ingredience.

 

[grateful1]

When you're ready to ship some out...let me know!

 

[Manzerick]

Now I know i'll be bringing chili to the Pats game on 11/30!!!


I have a football shaped crockpot just itching to be full of Chili!!!!

 

[shakeylegs]

If you can make 35 ingredients "sing" you are a miracle worker. Many chefs hesitate to use more than 5 or 6 ingredients in any recipe.

On the whole secrecy issue, it's always baffled me. A recipe is one thing. Executing it is a completely different proposition. My wife, for instance, makes the best chicken soup I've ever tasted. The ingredients and technique are simple and straight forward. I've watched her and I know the recipe by heart. However, when I make "her" recipe the soup tastes very different - and not nearly as good as hers. I've tried to pinpoint the difference and it comes down to something in the technique.

I know there are a lot of cooks here - it might be fun to start a CPF Killer Recipe thread. I'm guessing it would make quite an interesting cookbook.

 

[karlthev]

Well now Lux, I do think that you should make a gift of the recipe for all of us as a Christmas present! I do all the cooking in the house and have for the past 30 years and, I make some good chilli and some great chilli. I never use recipes for cooking though-makes the activity too dang much like work (though that's not my profession). That's why my cooking varies from good to great (or better than just good!). I just might "follow the boo"k (actually YOUR recipe!) if you would be willing to give it up though! :naughty:



Karl

 

[Norm]

BACON FAT
BACON FAT
BACON FAT

Everything tastes better cooked in bacon fat!! My fave is to crack some eggs in an iron skillet with bacon fat.. the more the better I go camping all the time with a guy who deep frys his hamburger in bacon grease. I tried one once and it made my stomach churn all night... LOL!!

Now I'm hungry...

I once stayed with a family in Arkansas who loved bacon grease (that's is the correct down there) they even poured it over a salad as a dressing, eggs were fried in at least half an inch of it.
I sure miss the biscuits and gravy too.
Norm

 

[KC2IXE]

...snip... 2lbs good beef (lean sirloin preferred) ...snip....

Beef? - Nah - Venison

 

[nbp]

Seeing as how here we are already getting wind chills in the single digits, chili is sounding pretty good right now.....

 

[BIGIRON]

Venison is a little too lean by itself (in my expert opinion!!!!!) I do like to add in a handful sometimes to give a little unique flavor. We roasted backstrap from a young doe last weekend. Wonderful.

 

[Mike Painter]

Not a chilli lover but Lux just made me want to eat some

Chili is an all year thing with me. Winter makes me think of Clam Chowder in sour dough bread bowls.

Alton Brown's is one of the best. Probably *the* best that is this simple.

My only warning is don't taste it until it has sat a while. The first batch I made was blah right after coming off the stove.

 

[Culhain]

Don't worry, there is 3 kinds of meat, several types each of tomatoes, beans, peppers, etc. Combinations of a number of specific chili, cumin, paprika powders, etc.

NOW, we have some information to go on.

By adding beans to your recipe, it is no longer a true chili, but rather is that delightful yankee concoction, which we call chili soup. As I understand the history, this soup came out of the great depression era and was popular as a way to stretch meat. Therefore, it falls somewhere between true chili and a cassoulet.

If the oft mentioned history is correct, the chili con carne recipe was developed at a southwest frontier mission around the year 1700 and was served to the local indians who they were enticing to attend Sunday services.

The original recipe is supposed to contain meat, a variety of local chilis, wild garlic, wild onion and comino (cumin). The red color of chili con carne came from the dried, roasted local chilis.

Tomatos ain't natural and were first hybredized in Reynoldsburg, Ohio circa 1850. Previously, they were neither edible or even red in color.

Bean and meats have vastly different cooking times and were not cooked together. If beans were part of the meal, they were cooked separately.

When I have more time, I will post my chili soup recipe which has won two local cookoffs. Unlike Texas cookoffs, our local events do not have judges, but reply on the popular vote of those attending the cookoff.

While I regularly cook and enjoy true chili, I love our local chili soups and think of it as comfort food.

 

[BIGIRON]

Culhain's right. I've eaten chili in Cincinnatti and, while great stuff, it ain't real chili. More a delightful and filling chili stew.

Common wisdom has the basic chili, similar to what I make, existing since the Garden of Eden (which I think was a little south of San Antonio). Folklore here has is that it developed with the pre-Colombian people of Central America and Mexico and quickly evolved with the Mexican vaqueros (original cowboys) who would kill a calf in the morning and the cocinero would have it cooked up by siesta time.

Kinda the same folklore about fajitas (skirt steak). When the calf was butchered, the jefe (bossman) would take the good cuts of meat and leave the lesser cuts, such as the skirt, to the workers.

BTW, I'm not a chili-cookoff kind of guy, but the two I was kinda forced to enter produced popular vote wins for my simple concoction (with beans on the side and no ketchup allowed!).

 

[LuxLuthor]

NOW, we have some information to go on.

By adding beans to your recipe, it is no longer a true chili, but rather is that delightful yankee concoction, which we call chili soup.

LOL, I was expecting one of these comments...but to quote a friend from San Antonio: "That's complete crap"...much akin to many in the Republic of Texas still not accepting that they are one of the United States of America, and anything that challenges their independent autonomy and absolute authority is something "Yankee" related & false.

First, check your facts. To quote the above resource for one:

Our travels through Texas, New Mexico, and California, and even Mexico, over the years have failed to turn up the elusive "best bowl of chili." Every state lays claim to the title, and certainly no Texan worth his comino (cumin) would think, even for a moment, that it rests anywhere else but in the Lone Star State - and probably right in his own blackened and battered chili pot.

There may not be an answer. There are, however, certain facts that one cannot overlook. The mixture of meat, beans, peppers, and herbs was known to the Incas, Aztecs, and Mayan Indians long before Columbus and the conquistadores.
​

I have made it with and more times without beans, but the last 4-5 years they have remained by popular demand. There is an equal controversy about tomatoes.

Wiki has a whole section on this controversy:

Controversy

A popular saying among self-proclaimed chili purists is, "If you know beans about chili, you know chili ain't got no beans." The thought that beans do not belong in chili may be further credited to the fact that most official chili cookoffs do not allow beans. In many cases, a chili will be disqualified if it contains such ingredients, considered filler.[2]

In fact, Pinto beans (frijoles), a staple of Tex-Mex cooking, have long been associated with chili, and the question of whether beans "belong" in chili has been a matter of contention amongst chili cooks for an equally long time. It is likely that in many poorer areas of San Antonio and other places associated with the origins of chili, beans were used rather than meat, or in addition to meat, due to poverty. In that regard, it has been suggested by some chili aficionados that there were probably two chili types made in the world, depending on what could be afforded and how frugal the cook was.

Many Easterners are just as adamant about the inclusion of beans in their chili for an authentic flavor as a minority of Texans are about their exclusion. A vocal minority of self-styled "chili experts" believe that beans and chili should always be cooked separately and served on the side. It is then up to the consumer to stir the preferred quantity of beans into his or her own bowl.
​

Tomatoes

Another ingredient considered anywhere from required to sacrilegious is tomatoes. Wick Fowler, north Texas newspaperman and inventor of "Two-Alarm Chili" (which he later marketed as a "kit" of spices), insisted on adding tomato sauce to his chili—one 15-oz. can per three pounds of meat.
​

 

[BIGIRON]

Lux, pretty much through South Texas (this is personal observation - and I almost always eat where the working people eat) frijoles are served with everything and almost always on the side, as is arroz (rice). Very, very rarely will you find beans served in chili but it is not uncommon to see them added at the table. Meat is not a staple of the "poor" Mexican diet - if used, it will be the lesser cuts such as fajita, tripas, chicken or ground mystery meat. Frijoles, arroz, masa (corn) and queso (cheese) are the staples.

My late friend, Baldemar Huerta (aka Freddy Fender) often said of his on again/off again fame and wealth that it just allowed his family to have steak with their frijoles.

And I agree that every Texan with a cookpot and some type of heat source is the best chili maker in the world. Just ask them.

BTW - a Wick Fowlers mix, properly prepared with good meat is damn good chili.

 

[steveG]

Come on Lux, if you're not going to profit from it, you might as well share.

Give up that recipe... WITH measurements!

 

[vardis]

It might me early, but I'm so hungry no I've read this!

 

[LuxLuthor]

BigIron, I know you are right in certain regions...just wanted to make the point that Chile originated with Mayans, Incas, & Azteks who used beans, so it is not as clear on beans/tomatoes as some people would have you think.

Ultimately, it is whatever tastes best to the people who eat it. Several years I made 8 different batches, changing one or two things in each batch and then had about 100 people voted which they liked. That narrowed down various flavors and techniques. I've read many contest/award winning recipes online, and in the 8 chili books I have collected over the years. I kept all the results and ingredients of my test batches in my "Chili Journal." I usually start with 6 pounds of meat in a large kettle at a time, and I'll likely make 8-10 more batches this year.

Got a beautiful batch done and ripening in frig, ready to finalize later today. Then make some cornbread on the side and shredded cheddar on top.

 

[BIGIRON]

This has been a fun thread. We're traveling for a week or so, but will check in from time to time.