Manfoods: Chili con Carne (Gringo Style)

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

I made chili today. I have gotten mine to the point where most people like it, despite the heat. And it's got some heat, although by no means an unmanageable amount.

3 lb Ground Beef, browned, & drained
2 lb Dry Pinto Beans, soaked overnight & cooked with cumin, garlic, beef stock
3 lg Yellow Onions, diced (somewhat coarse)
6 ea Fresh Jalapenos, chopped
1 tbsp Minced Garlic
1 ea Green Bell Pepper, diced
1/4 cup EVOO
1 tbsp Concentrated Beef Stock
1 tbsp Cumin
1 tbsp Garlic (granulated)
1 tbsp Dried Oregano
1 tsp Chili Powder
2 lg can Stewed Tomatoes (28oz)
1 lg can Diced Tomatoes (28oz)
1 lg jar Pace Thick & Chunky Salsa, Medium or Hot
2 jar Pickled Nacho Style Jalapenos, stems removed
2 can Refried Beans
Beer (optional; the cheaper the beer, the more flavor it adds)

Alright all of that was off the top of my head so be careful with the seasonings, only put what you feel is appropriate. I eyeball it rather than measure myself, but the amounts should be close.

In a large sauce pot combine EVOO, onions, fresh japs, minced garlic, bell pepper, and spices. Sautee until liquid is reduced and onions are translucent, stirring frequently. Add pickled nacho slices and liquid, beef stock concentrate, beer if available, reduce by half. Add stewed tomatoes, crush tomatoes coarsely with wooden spoon, and reduce liquid by half. Add diced tomatoes and reduce liquid by half. Add salsa and bring mixture to a rolling boil. Add refried beans and stir until they dissolve in the sauce. Add beans & meat, bring to boil then reduce heat, cover & simmer, stirring occasionally at least 1 hour before serving.

Serve with shredded cheddar-jack and diced onions, if desired. Add hot sauce with caution, this will have a cumulative heat as you eat it.

Drink remaining beer & belch loudly.

[Some corrections made]

[Zarathustra]

Only 1 tsp of chili powder in chili? Wow. I've never gone by any recipe, but that sounds light on the one ingredient that actually has "chili" in the name.

Since I bought a smoker a few years back, my recipes have gone from "x" to "smoked x." I make smoked chili. I buy several different kinds of fresh peppers (jalapenoes, anaheim, poblano, banana, serrano), and smoke them for about two hours along with vidalia onion, roma tomotoes, garlic cloves, and 3 pounds hamburger. While all that is smoking, I make my chili "base" on the stove, starting from tomato paste, beef broth, several different kinds of beans (black, kidney, pinto), and start throwing in the spices until it tastes good. Lots of chili powder. Lots of cumin. Granulated garlic. Salt. Black pepper.

When everything is done smoking, I chop up the veggies in a food processor and add it to the stew. Cook for a hour or two.

It has a well integrated, but not overpowering, smoky flavor. The variety of fresh peppers give a rich, complex spiciness. I love this stuff.

[Vraith]

I too use quite a bit more chili powder, many varieties of peppers [including sweet ones, not just hot ones]...also quite a bit more garlic.
Also, [non-authenticizing] I use about 1/3rd sausage, and brown with a healthy dose of crushed red pepper and either soy or worcestershire sauce for no particular reason except I like them.

Until I was about 30-ish for some reason I couldn't stand beans of any kind except string, so I cut firm tofu into bean-sized chunks instead of beans. [Still go back to it occasionally].
When I'm with family, also add corn. I don't really like it so much that way, but they do.

[wayfriend]

2 lb Dry Pinto Beans, soaked overnight & cooked with cumin, garlic, beef stock

Do I lose man points for using those canned "mexican beans" which are pinto beans in a spicy tomato sauce? (Not refried beans.) Because I do.

(Although my man sense is tingling at the thought of refried beans in chili ... is that possible?)



(Ingredients: Soaked Pinto Beans, Water, Tomato Paste, Salt, Chili Pepper, Cumin, Oregano, Garlic, Onion and Cayenne Pepper.)

[Harbinger]

I prefer to use black beans, pinto beans, baked beans or a combination of the three. I dislike kidney beans.

Baked beans in chili are actually pretty damn good.

The "Flatlander" chili recipe at allrecipes.com has 4.5/5 stars with almost 1100 reviews. You don't see that very often- on anything recipe or otherwise.

allrecipes.com/Recipe/flatlander-chili/detail.aspx

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

2 lb Dry Pinto Beans, soaked overnight & cooked with cumin, garlic, beef stock

Do I lose man points for using those canned "mexican beans" which are pinto beans in a spicy tomato sauce? (Not refried beans.) Because I do.

(Although my man sense is tingling at the thought of refried beans in chili ... is that possible?)



(Ingredients: Soaked Pinto Beans, Water, Tomato Paste, Salt, Chili Pepper, Cumin, Oregano, Garlic, Onion and Cayenne Pepper.)

WF, using canned beans may actually increase man points. I like the brand you introduced (good quality and value) and Bush's Ranch Style Beans are another alternative. My recipe was based on what I actually made, and unfortunately the cook that just left used up all the damn canned beans!

I may have omitted the step with the refried beans, but you dissolve them into the chili just before adding meat and beans. It thickens and adds flavor.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Z, that sounds like a great recipe, one that is close to what my wife does (although she doesn't smoke her ground beef and onions). As chili powder is essentially cayenne and cumin, I tend to rely on the cumin side for favoring since chili powder can give me indigestion (presumably due to cayenne).

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

I prefer to use black beans, pinto beans, baked beans or a combination of the three. I dislike kidney beans.

Baked beans in chili are actually pretty damn good.

The "Flatlander" chili recipe at allrecipes.com has 4.5/5 stars with almost 1100 reviews. You don't see that very often- on anything recipe or otherwise.

allrecipes.com/Recipe/flatlander-chili/detail.aspx

That's interesting about baked beans. I had several cans of Bush's Baked Beans, the ones with a lot of cumin in them, and I thought long and hard about using them. I too do not care for kidney beans, I don't think they add enough flavor.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

I too use quite a bit more chili powder, many varieties of peppers [including sweet ones, not just hot ones]...also quite a bit more garlic.
Also, [non-authenticizing] I use about 1/3rd sausage, and brown with a healthy dose of crushed red pepper and either soy or worcestershire sauce for no particular reason except I like them.

Until I was about 30-ish for some reason I couldn't stand beans of any kind except string, so I cut firm tofu into bean-sized chunks instead of beans. [Still go back to it occasionally].
When I'm with family, also add corn. I don't really like it so much that way, but they do.

I did forget to put minced garlic (1 tbsp) in the recipe although I used it. What kind of sausage do you use?

[Vraith]

I too use quite a bit more chili powder, many varieties of peppers [including sweet ones, not just hot ones]...also quite a bit more garlic.
Also, [non-authenticizing] I use about 1/3rd sausage, and brown with a healthy dose of crushed red pepper and either soy or worcestershire sauce for no particular reason except I like them.

Until I was about 30-ish for some reason I couldn't stand beans of any kind except string, so I cut firm tofu into bean-sized chunks instead of beans. [Still go back to it occasionally].
When I'm with family, also add corn. I don't really like it so much that way, but they do.

I did forget to put minced garlic (1 tbsp) in the recipe although I used it. What kind of sausage do you use?

EDITED to add: For God's sake! How many times did I say "interesting" in there? I'm boring even myself, now.
Usually pork, and I tend to avoid anything strongly pre-flavored, I like to do that myself. And obviously, I'm talking "bulk" sausage...just ground without the casing. Though I suppose there's not reason it has to be that. Any turkey/chicken based [all of which I personally consider pseudo-sausage] are a waste of time though...they have no flavor that contributes enough to make it interesting. The most interesting to me...though seasonal...is venison sausage, if you happen to be/know a hunter...good luck finding venison in a store.
Also, I have used pepperoni chopped into hunks. [not a lot...about 1/2 cup or so] Wouldn't do it all the time, but it made an interesting change of pace.
I really really want to try it with ostrich...there was a local ostrich guy near here, but he went broke a couple years ago. Ostrich has a very interesting flavor.

[Vader]

Replace Jalapenos with Habaneros I'm in for it. Oh yeah, and more chili powder.

[wayfriend]

I may have omitted the step with the refried beans, but you dissolve them into the chili just before adding meat and beans. It thickens and adds flavor.

I knew it had to be possible: refried beans seemed too manly to not be in chili. (BTW, I now see that you did added the step, but it's also missing from the ingredients.)

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

I may have omitted the step with the refried beans, but you dissolve them into the chili just before adding meat and beans. It thickens and adds flavor.

I knew it had to be possible: refried beans seemed too manly to not be in chili. (BTW, I now see that you did added the step, but it's also missing from the ingredients.)

Corrected. Refried beans are too manly to be left out of chili.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

I made this twice in 3 days, a huge cauldron of it too (following the recipe), and I never got to freeze any of it, everybody devoured it. I did up the chili powder a bit on the second batch, and on the first eating (cooked about an hour), sure enough I got indigestion. I did simmer it for a couple more hours that day and the morning of the next, and it was fine afterwards.

I want to say something else. I think it is important to sautee your onions, which when you do it to a lot of onions takes time as the onions generate a pretty good bit of water. It's important to evaporate that water and brown them a bit before throwing in more ingredients.

[Vraith]

I want to say something else. I think it is important to sautee your onions, which when you do it to a lot of onions takes time as the onions generate a pretty good bit of water. It's important to evaporate that water and brown them a bit before throwing in more ingredients.

In most cases I don't sautee onions [certain things you have to, of course] because to do so automatically transforms their natural bite into sweetness. In chili and pasta sauces and a number of other things the only reason I want onion at all is for the bite. But it varies. I make a mean chicken soup in which I use a fair amount of onion...1/3rd I sautee, 1/3rd I basically "flame grill" so the outsides of the chunks are burnt/seared, the inside unscathed, 1/3rd added near the end so the get hot/slightly soft, but aren't cooked....hey...maybe I'll try the same thing with the next chili I make!
EDITED to add...and maybe the same procedure with the sweet peppers.

[Zarathustra]

Not really chili related, but speaking of sauteeing onions, I love to fry up some bacon, remove bacon from the pan, and then sautee chopped onions right in the bacon fat with minced galic. I do this for a lot of my recipies, from baked beans to german-style sauerkraut. I wonder how it would be in chili?? Hmmm....

Also, I've got to try that refried beans trick. Sounds awesome.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

It's a great way of absorbing excess moisture in the sauce.

I too am fascinated by the idea of rendering the fat of the meat I am using into oil for browning the vegetables. I tried it with the chili other day in fact, in lieu of olive oil I used the fat left over from browning the ground meat (did that first, for this purpose) to brown the vegetables. Not sure how much it added as this recipe is pretty good as is, and I already fortify it with beef stock. Maybe I'll try it without the beef stock next time.

Bacon grease though is the mother-fat of almost all southern cooking. Mm-mm! My wife does use it to good effect on those rare occasions when she makes me some authentic deep south grub.

[Menolly]

Bacon grease though is the mother-fat of almost all southern cooking. Mm-mm! My wife does use it to good effect on those rare occasions when she makes me some authentic deep south grub.

This Brooklyn, New York born Jewish girl transplanted to south Florida before her first decade ended has both a jar of bacon fat and a jar of schmaltz (rendered chicken fat and skin with onions) in her refrigerator at all times. The bacon fat is a must have for eggs and for green beans, and the schmaltz is awesome for matzah brei and sauteed liver, whether beef, chicken, or the very rare goose.

[Damelon]

Some good recipes. The smoked chili sounds good. I've been playing around with chili recipes the last few weeks. I'm making some this morning.

I'm using two pounds of ground beef and one package of Jimmy Dean pork sage breakfast sausage. I in addition to chili powder and 6 cloves of garlic, I add 6 - 8 cloves and a couple of cinnamon sticks. I'm using 4 or 5 jalapeños pierced several times each with a corn cob holder, two cans of tomato paste and one 28oz can of stewed tomatoes and one bottle of 312 wheat beer.

I've made it with a large onion chopped in but this time I'm saving it to be used as a garnish.


For future ideas I have: I'm not a big fan of beans in chili, but do have some dried great northern beans lying around. One time I may try it with a cup of those added. I'm also interested in adding some maple syrup to a batch to see how it tastes, but the syrup I have here now is too good to waste on a test batch of chili.

[Vader]

Not really chili related, but speaking of sauteeing onions, I love to fry up some bacon, remove bacon from the pan, and then sautee chopped onions right in the bacon fat with minced galic. I do this for a lot of my recipies, from baked beans to german-style sauerkraut. I wonder how it would be in chili?? Hmmm....

Also, I've got to try that refried beans trick. Sounds awesome.

Sauteed garlic in German-style Sauerkraut? Never heard of that and I'm a fan of Sauerkraut, especially in winter ...