As an additional meat, since having chili made (not too far off what I've read on here from others) that hot Italian sausage works nicely. Say for the portions of 2lbs ground beef, 6 full sausages, 1/2 cooked full in oven first, then chopped into 1 inch size bites to finish cooking in chili. So basically added near the end. Plus Jamaican hot peppers instead of jalapeno if feeling risque on the heat, and always oregano added to beef after browning which I haven't noticed here yet.

Agree with poblano over bell pepper, or a mix. Celery is a nonstarter for me. I'm ok with carrots but don't use them. Most commercial hot sauces are vinegar based so I don't like them for chili. I like a bit of fresh lime juice on the top, but that's personal taste. I also prefer red onions for topping and a little bit of chopped cilantro. Cilantro is good in the chili too. I prefer a higher cumin:chili powder ratio than most too so take it with a grain of kosher rock salt. Good meat chunks are a +1 to +2 on any chili to me. Really fresh garden tomatoes make a difference too.

Not enough attention to beans here imo.

Edit to add I'm not a fan of oregano or sausage in chili but again this is a personal choice.

El D,

I'm going to try to duplicate your recipe this week. These are the only jalapeno chips I found at the store, are these what you used?

http://www.amazon.com/FoodShouldTast.../dp/B000YSVMQO

ck,

Those are the ones I used, but I suspect them being jalapeno chips has absolutely no impact in the final product. I'm sure any corn tortilla chips would work just as well.

Yeah I used the "hint of lime" tortilla chips and couldn't notice it at all. Too many bold flavors going on for the chips to stand out.

Thanks. Will post TR and pics later this week. Will be my first go at chili.

Made a variation of my recipe tonight, I only used ground beef (forgot to thaw the chuck), and I was out of beer So I added 2 tsp of liquid smoke, 1 tbsp worchestershire, and ~ tbsp franks red hot to the recipe I posted before, omitting the chunked beef and the beer.

It turned out like this:


I used homegrown peppers this time. Highly recommend it. I usually buy Habaneros at the mega mart and I get 2 to 3 for a batch of chili, I taste before adding them. I only used one tonight. I was a bit worried because the Seattle area did not have any summer this year, so my peppers never ripened, it turns out habaneros are still hot.

Going to make some Turkey Chili tonight. Trip report to follow.

So I had some left over turkey (not from Thanksgiving, but I happened to make a turkey this past weekend), and decided to make some chili out of it.

First, I peeled off a nice big piece of turkey skin and let it cook in the bottom of the pot for some nice fat to cook off. The rest of the turkey meat had already been skinned. Once there was some nice grease going in the pot, I removed the piece of skin and added 3 shots of bourbon, scraped the bottom of the pot, and then loaded on about 2 pounds of chopped up turkey.

Obligatory picture of bourbon used:



Eagle Rare 10 year Single Barrel

Next I mixed in:

5 cloves of garlic chopped fine
1 large white onion diced
2 poblano peppers chopped roughly
2 jalapeno peppers diced
1 habenero pepper diced

and the following seasonings:

5 tsp cumin
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp cinnamon

and 1 more shot of bourbon for good measure

Here's a picture of the mostly dry mix(apologies in advance the pictures are of poor quality):



Delicious smell at this point, a mix of the peppers, cinnamon, and a sweet caramel-like smell from the bourbon.

After this mix had a little bit of time to stew, I mixed in two cans of pinto beans and 1 cup of water to add a little liquid. No worries, this naturally thickens up well as it cooks.

Here's a picture of the final mixture after about an hour of cooking:



Finally, after about another hour it was time to try:



Delicious! Right amount of heat, good texture, and just the slightest hint of sweetness. I'm looking forward to see what a day in the refrigerator will add to this.

Might have to make a pot after reading this thread..

For now I'll just give some of my personal thoughts on chili:

- Cilantro/lime juice/cumin are VERY key ingredients
- poblanos>bell peppers
- ground beef/ground pork/diced ribeye is the best combo of meats ever
- carrots make chili look tacky
- poking holes in habaneros with a toothpick, and just adding them into the chili while it cooks is actually quite effective

Damn this looks good. Is this the first recipe that has no tomatoes? I'm going to try this one time.

ME,

Don't bring that crap to Texas.

i like to eat chili on saltine type crackers with butter on them

LOL, my thoughts as well upon seeing pics. Sounds like it tasted better than it looked at least.

I just got done looking through a daniel boulud chili recipie in which he advocates making your own chili powder from scratch. The recipe is a bit different than what I've been doing, and I will probably try it out for my next batch.

Recipe:

Smoky Beef Chili:

adapted from: Braise: A Journey Through International Cuisine by Daniel Boulud and Melissa Clark
(Print Friendly Recipe)

Ingredients:

* 2 limes
* 2 tablespoons masa harina (fine corn meal)
* 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
* 4 pounds beef chuck roast: 2½ pounds cut into ½-inch cubes; 1½ pounds ground (ask your butcher to do this) finely chopped
* ¼ pound slab bacon, cut into large chunks
* 1 large onion, peeled and cut into large cubes
* 4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
* 1 tablespoon ground cumin
* 1 tablespoon dried regular oregano or Mexican oregano
* 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt or kosher salt
* ¼ cup homemade chili powder *
* 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
* 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
* 5 large tomatoes, roughly chopped (or 1- 28 oz. can San Marzano tomatoes, roughly chopped with juices)
* 1 bay leaf
* ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro

Method:

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 300°F.

2. Grate the zest of the limes, then juice both limes. In a large bowl, combine 3 cups water, the masa harina, and the lime zest and juice.

3. Heat the olive oil in a medium cast-iron pot over high heat. Add the beef cubes and ground beef and sear until golden brown on all sides, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer the beef to a plate and wipe the inside of the pot clean with paper towels.

4. Lower the temperature to medium-high. Add the bacon to the pot and cook until it renders its fat, about 5 minutes. Add the onion, garlic, cumin, oregano, and salt and cook until the onions are softened, 10 to 12 minutes. Add the chili powder, stir to combine, and cook for 1 to 2 more minutes. Stir in the vinegar and Worcestershire sauce and bring to a simmer, scraping up any browned bits stuck to the bottom of the pot. Return the beef cubes and ground meat to the pot and add the tomatoes, bay leaf, and masa harina mixture. Bring to a simmer.

5. Cover the pot and transfer it to the oven to braise for 2 hours, stirring once or twice. Sprinkle with the cilantro leaves right before serving.

NOTE: The recipe is best when using Boulud's homemade chili powder (recipe below), but it also delicious if you use freshly bought pre-made powder. I recently made it with store bought powder (1/2 ancho chili powder, 1/2 plain chili powder) and it was terrific!

* Homemade Chili Powder:

Ingredients:

* 4 dried ancho chili peppers
* 4 dried pasilla chili peppers
* 4 dried guajillo chili peppers
* 2 dried chilies de árbol
* 2 dried pequin chili peppers
* 1 small dried habanero chili pepper

Method:

In a dry skillet over medium heat peppers on all sides for 5 to 7 minutes, making sure that they are lightly toasted, but not burned. Transfer them to a plate to cool. Remove and discard the seeds from the peppers. Blend the peppers in a spice grinder to a fine powder.

Also, the above recipe can easily be done on a stovetop instead of in the oven in case you're making it in a non oven-safe pot.

Now this is making me salivate while I'm at work. I've made chili before but never really abided to any single recipe but rather tended to throw things together and it's always turned out delicious. Having read this thread, though, I am inspired to make a more proper chili soon taking pepper/meat selection into greater account. I'll try and take some pics and post a TR, too.

Also, don't knock white chili (what ME posted). It's different but has its place and is delicious with a garnish of cilantro and salsa verde!

+1 I don't see the problem at all, I thought it looked really good!

I love me some chili, and IYAM Texas Chili Parlor in Austin is the gold standard of Texas-style chili (never tried any of their nonstandard variations).

Vinegar is a surprising addition to many recipes. It adds a bit of brightness and makes the dish less heavy.

My favorite Texas-style chili (almost all meat and chilis) tends to have very coarse ground meat which is typically chuck roast. Hamburger grind is too fine, 1" chunks are too big IMO.

A fair no grinder method I've devised is after it's fully cooked, take ~1/4 of the chili aside and mash up with a potato masher, then very very lightly mash the remaining 3/4, then combine it all together again. I do similar with the rustic marinara sauce I make except I use a stick blender instead of a masher.

I have too much junk and gadgets in my kitchen already but do have a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer that accepts attachments so my plan is to get their $50 meat grinder attachment and take the grinder disc to a machine shop to have the holes enlarged because the coarsest grind disc is still too small for chili.

Didn't study all the recipes ITT in detail, but another biggie is cooking the dry seed spices in fat which helps them bloom and many of the aromatics are fat soluble and not water soluble. You'll see pretty much all Tex Mex follow this method where the cumin is cooked in fat, same for many Indo/Paki/Chinese recipes. takes a bit of practice to get the timing right because it goes from no spell to fragrant and then to scorched very quickly. Do it as a first step of the recipe so if you scorch it there's not much to throw oout. With chili, I get a bit of peanut oil to fry the dry spices in for a half minute then add the beef to brown.

I also think fresh ground cumin is far more flavorful, and have a cheapie $15 coffee grinder I keep just for grinding spices like cumin, cloves, etc for stews and curries.

I'm also not afraid to toss in a little MSG ("ajinomoto" or something like that in many indian recipes) into a few of my recipes and chili is one of them.

Good post Jason. Definitely agree on cooking dry spices in fat before adding liquid. Generally, I add the dry spices to the pan about 5 mins before I dump my beer in. Funny you mention the coffee grinder thing since I bought one a couple days ago for that exact purpose. I'm gonna make another batch this week and I'm going to grind spices instead of using powdered spices, and I'm also going to make my own chili powder. I'm going to ask my butcher to grind me a couple lbs of chuck as coarsely as possible also.

Jason,

Thanks for the tips, and welcome to EDF!

JID's post reminded me of a few things.

Living in Austin, I have frequented the Texas Chili Parlor a few times. Their chili is definitely in the old school vein of Texas chili, cooked 1 inch chunks of beef (meaning raw it was probably 1 1/2 inch chunks), in a thick stew dominated by spice and beef flavor and very little if any tomato flavor. Imagine a pot roast or beef stew except without any noticeable veggies and a much stronger spice kick.

As an aside, the Texas Chili Parlor is the setting for most of the first half of Tarantino's Death Proof.

This thread confuses me.

I am really disappointed at all the gray meat. I guess I can understand the difficulty with the ground meat but the cubed meat really should be browned. I use a cast iron skillet flaming hot to get a good browning on the cubes, and don't really worry about cooking them all the way -- I let the time in the pot with everything else finish them off.

I am a big fan of using cocoa/dark chocolate in the recipe.

The key to good browning when cooking a big pot of chili is to not brown the meat all at once but instead in batches so all of the meat has contact with a hot surface.

Sif,

Thanks for your gray meat comment. I agree and fixing that is a priority for my next batch.