Recipes from Cooking with Doyle Moore on Focus 580

November 7, 2007:  Chili

Chilly weather makes us think of chili.    Doyle took a workshop in writing haiku poetry and one morning he wrote:

            no ants in the kitchen

            the furnace just turned on

            I’ll get the fixin's for chili

VEGETARIAN CHILI

As we speak there is a pot of vegetarian chili in Doyle’s slow cooker. 

• potatoes, chopped up

• celery

• onions

• carrots

• can of hominy

• garbanzo beans

• crushed tomatoes

• can of green chilies

• ground chimayo chili

• cumin

• garlic

The potatoes did not cook down as much as I thought they would; all the other flavors cooked down and merged together.  It tastes great both hot and cold.

British friends have pointed out that this vegetarian chili has similarities to an Indian curry dish, at least in technique: highly spiced and cooked for a long time. 

ESSENTIALS OF CHILI

There are lots of opinions on what chili must and must not be.  Some people like to put in corn, bell peppers, white beans.  Doyle has made an “American” chili containing turkey, hominy, chili peppers, and tomatoes.  There is great flexibility in what you can include.  What is essential, though, is ground chili peppers, which you can use direct, or from “chili powder”.  If you use chili powder (which is a mixture of ground chili, cumin, oregano, and garlic), then you don’t have to add any other seasonings. 

CHILI POWDERS AND GROUND CHILI

Chili aficionados love to talk about the ground chilies they use.  You can still buy Mexene chili powder, one of the first commercial chili powders, at Jerry’s IGA, where it comes in a tall round tube bottle.  See also http://www.mexene.com/.   But Doyle prefers ground chili from Chimayo in New Mexico (http://www.savoryspiceshop.com/spices/chilchimpdr.html); others like chili from Hatch (http://www.hatch-chile.com/).  These are just dried ground chilies, not mixed with other things; if you use them, you do have to put in extra tastes, especially cumin which is very significant for chili.  You can purchased ground cumin; or if you prefer, you can take cumin seeds, roast them in a dry skillet, and grind lightly (not into a powder) in a mortar and pestle.

BASIC “BRICK” CHILI RECIPE

A caller from Champaign was looking for a basic chili recipe, but found such a variation of methods:  some with ground beef, some with chunks of beef; some without beans, some with beans; some with cayenne pepper, some with red peppers.  What is a basic recipe? 

Chili doesn’t have to be killer hot, and it’s okay to use chili powder  rather than ground chilies.  A basic Texas border chili only has chili powder and meat.  The meat should be ground up, but coarser than hamburger, and it should contain a fair amount of fat.  A caller from Champaign reports that her mother used 2-3 lbs. ground beef plus ½ lb. suet!

Brown the meat, but not too much, then put in a lot of chili powder (3-4 Tbsps).  The mixture of meat and chili (no vegetables), with only a very small amount of water (2 Tbsps) cooks down like a confit, preserved in its own fat.  Cook it very slowly, for a very long time (6-8 hours at least on low in a crock pot).  Then put it in a loaf pan and into the refrigerator at least overnight.  When ready to use, cut off slices of it to cook; add water and bring to a boil.  If you want beans, cook them separately and add to the chili only at the last minute. 

This recipe doesn’t have flour or any other thickener, so it’s thin; and it has no carrots or other added ingredients, it’s just plain straight cooking. 

CINCINNATI CHILI

Cincinnati chili is different from Texas chili.  It was invented by a Greek in Cincinnati, and is a unique mixture of ingredients and assembly, with spaghetti and cheese and onions on top.

• 2 lbs. ground beef

• 4 medium onions chopped

• 1 clove garlic, minced

• 2 tsps. vinegar

• 1 can (12-oz.) tomato paste

• 2-3 Tbsps. chili powder

• 3 tsps. cinnamon

• 1 tsp. Tabasco sauce

• a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce

• water, salt, and pepper

• make a spice bag of:

  • 4 dried peppers (like pequinos)

  • 35 allspice (whole)

  • 5 bay leaves

Plus: cooked spaghetti, shredded sharp cheese, chopped onions, oyster crackers.

The allspice and cinnamon is going to change the taste of this chili.  The ingredients are all put together and cooked for an hour.  Then assemble hot spaghetti topped by the chili and then cheese, onions, and oyster crackers.

From Chili Lover's Cookbook by Al Fischer and Mildred Fischer, 1984.

RED KIDNEY BEANS

An off-air caller reported that there is some kind of toxin in red kidney beans, so you have to really cook them.  Slow cookers don’t cook them enough, so don’t start with raw beans in a slow cooker.  This toxin is actually in all beans, but there is more of it in red kidney beans.  The recommended procedure for cooking beans is this:  soak the beans well, then get rid of that water and boil them for at least 10 minutes in fresh water.  Canned beans are fine, as they have been pre-cooked.

SOME VARIATIONS

A caller from Geneva reports that he likes corn in his chili.  He adds mangoes and oranges and beer to the basic chili, and tries to match the right kind of beer to each variation on chili.

A caller from Champaign uses a pound each of sausage and of hamburger, and some onion.  She  browns that up and then adds 2 large cans of Campbell’s tomato juice, a large can of chili beans (half of it pureed to thicken the mixture), a full jar of chili powder, and a bag of boil-in-the-bag rice to help thicken it; it all goes in the crock pot.  She also adds a dab of Italian seasoning. 

MEXICAN OREGANO

The oregano used in chili powder is Mexican oregano, which is different from the Italian kind found most frequently in local stores.  A caller from Urbana reports that Mexican oregano can be had from Penzey’s (http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/p-penzeysoregano.html).  It’s strong and rich, very pungent.  Another caller from Urbana reports that Mexican oregano is available locally at Jerry’s IGA.