So, big game tomorrow. Americana and overindulgence. Decided I wanted a nice bowl of chili to go with my ballgame and my beer. The Lovely Wife reminded me that I’ve made jambalaya in the past, but this year I’m craving a bowl of red.
One of the things I like best about chili is that it’s a recipe open to almost infinite interpretation. You can tinker with it — hotter or milder? beans or no beans? beef or turkey or chicken or soy crumbles? — and as long as you stick to some basic parameters, you’ll wind up with something edible. My default is the recipe I grew up with, a version that uses diced sirloin instead of ground beef. It requires a decent investment in time, but the return is worth it: thick, spicy, and needing nothing but a few saltines and a cold beer to accompany it.
But this is a dish that demands attention be paid to it. It’s not something I can just scarf down when my mind is focused on whether my team should go for it on fourth and short. No, for my current purposes I need a chili that can feed my body while keeping my mind free to focus on other things. At the same time, I don’t just want to suck down a can of store bought chili. I want a meal that has seen the inside of a kitchen, and was assembled by human hands from beginning to end.
The variant I’ll be enjoying tomorrow goes a little somethin’ like this:
Bart Modern’s Big Game Chili (2008)
2T vegetable oil
4T + 1 teaspoon hot chili powder
2t salt
2 packages (about 1.25# each) meatloaf mix (ground beef, pork, and veal)
1T olive oil
1T cumin
2 medium yellow onions, diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 4 oz. can chopped green chilis
1 cup beer (leave on the counter for about one hour to let some of the gas dissipate)
1 cup apple juice
1T Worcestershire sauce
1t Tabasco sauce
2 28 oz. cans crushed tomatoes
1 cup water
1 15.5 oz. can red kidney beans
1 15.5 oz. can black beans
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1) Heat the oil in a 5-quart stockpot set on medium high heat. Add the meat, and 1 teaspoon each of chili powder and salt. Brown the meat, breaking it up with a wooden spoon until it has a coarse consistency.
2) When the meat it browned, remove from the pot with a slotted spoon and set aside. Retain 2T of the rendered fat, and add 1T olive oil to it. Add the remaining chili powder and cumin, and stir for about 10 seconds to let the spices bloom in the oil. Add the onion, and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring every 20 seconds. Add the garlic and cook another 1 minute. Add the diced chilis and cook another 1 minute.
3) Add the meat back to the pot. Stir to combine and cook for 2 minutes.
4) Add the beer. Stir and let cook for 2 minutes to allow the alcohol to burn off. Add the Worcestershire, Tabasco, and apple juice. Stir. Add the tomatoes. Use 1 cup water to rinse out the tomato cans. Add to the pot. Stir to combine.
5) Reduce heat to medium. Cover and cook for one and a half hours.
6) Add drained beans, cook for another 30 minutes.
