Chili

Commenter to my Thursday Thirteen post brought about a search for my chili recipe in twc. Hmmm…. the whole thing’s not anywhere collected and put in one place. So, here goes. I’ve collected the various pieces and put them into one post. It’s one of those “more of a process than a recipe” recipes.

My Fav Chili

1.) About a pound of roast beef, shredded, preferably leftovers.
2.) 3-4 cups of beans, cooked. (See below for the process. Use canned beans only if you must.) Pinto beans, only, please.
3.) A whole, large yellow (sweet) onion, chopped. Hint: if you chop your yellow onion the day before and store it in a ziplock baggie in the fridge, the onion will be sweeter,
4.) A couple of cloves of garlic, minced. (In the post I excerpted this part of the recipe from, I originally wrote “cups of garlic.” That’d make for some really strong chili. *heh*)
5.) About 1/2 to one cup of Red Sauce. Use the recipe for red enchilada sauce (see below). If you have no sense of taste, just use the packaged chili powder junk. (Blech!)
6.) At least two tablespoonsful of freshly ground cumin. I use more. (grind it in your “spare” coffee grinder like I do. :-))
7.) A few leaves of dried oregano, crushed between your hands and dusted off into the pan…
8.) A sparse dash or two of chinese five-spice. Yeh, it’ll work. Just trust me on this one.
9.) A can of chopped tomatoes or some of your fav spaghetti sauce (can cut the earlier oregano if you choose this route).

Get the onions and garlic started clarifying in a medium-heat skillet with some olive or corn oil (diff flavors, your taste). Add the beef (already cooked, preferably “leftover” roast). Add the herbs and spices and cook, covered at lower heat, until the beef’s done (you’re way ahead if you went with leftovers!). Add the red sauce, tomatoes and beans and simmer for an hour or so, checking to see if any added water’s needed from time to time.

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From an early blogspot twc post:

Basic Beans

Wash and sort 2-3 cups of pinto beans (more or less, depending on folks to be fed, how much you want left over for chili, etc. NOTE: I don’t guarantee the method below for red beans)

In a heavy stock pot, cover the beans with water-about 2″-3″ more water than beans. Bring to a boil, remove from heat and let sit for an hour or so. After an hour or so off heat, you have a decision tree branch:

1.) Do beans often give you gas? If so, and if it bothers you or others around you, toss the water and cover the beans with fresh water before proceding.
2.) If beans don’t seem to give you gas or passing gas doesn’t bother you or those around you (in my family, we call passing bean gas “love farts”—well, at least I do), then go ahead and cook the beans in the water they’re in.

Add a ham hock. No, don’t get fancy or make some sort of substitution. Add a ham hock. Bring the mess to boil again, then cover, back the heat off to a simmer and leave it. After about an hour cooking time, you can add salt or other seasonings to your taste. With the ham hock in, all I usually add is a little salt. When are the beans done? Take a bean or two out and blow on ’em. If the skin curls away from your breath either the beans are done or you have some knarly breath, dude.

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Red Enchilada Sauce for enchiladas, chili, and a whole mess of other dishes (Makes 16 oz.—give or take)

8-10 dried Anaheim peppers (actually, I tend to use more). Clean the seeds out for merely “sorta-hot”. Leave the seeds in for a little spiciness. Tear the peppers up into pieces and then either

a.) Use an electric coffee grinder to powder the chiles to a fine powder and add boiling water to make 2 cups liquid. Blend in blender. Set aside and let it come together for a little bit. (My preferred “quick sauce” method) OR
b.) Place the pepper pieces in a sauce pan and cover with boiling water. Place a saucer (or whatever works) on top of the peppers to hold them submerged under the water and then leave them all day soaking. Remove the peppers from the water, place them in a blender with enough water to make 2 cups and blend.

If you absolutely NEED a thicker and/or milder sauce, use a little corn flour in the blending stage to thicken/whimp out the sauce. Keep the corn flour down to less than 1/4 C for each 2 C water, otherwise it’ll really begin to taste “corny”. (Only have corn meal? Put a little in your coffe grinder and make corn flour out of it. Don’t have a coffee grinder? Get one! 🙂 You can cut the heat and really thicken the sauce with just a couple of tablespoonsful. OK, that is all there is to real Red Enchilada Sauce. It’s really just chiles and water.

You can put what you don’t use in a glass jar and refrigerate for maybe a week.