Grumpsy's (Dad's) Prize Winning Chili

(Just look at the trophy in hand in previous post!)

Chili con Carne:

2 Lb coarse-ground beef (a real preference here would be to substitute ground buffalo instead of the beef – I’ve been seeing ground buffalo in the market these days, and often cheaper than ground beef). Another alternative: 1 Lb ground beef, I Lb ground pork. You pick! 2 Lbs whatever meat – preferably ground coarse.. Best; Ask the meat department in your supermarket to custom grind your meat – best option, 2 Lb coarse ground beef brisket or chuck. (We want meat which won’t lose all its texture after three hours simmering).

2 16 Oz Packages dark red kidney beans or chili beans or small red beans (dry).

2 medium yellow onions, “Chunk” chopped.

4 large cloves garlic – crushed or diced.

1 fresh green (or yellow), or red bell pepper –seeded, chopped (OPT)

Salt (1 Tsp) and cracked pepper ( ½ Tsp)

1 Tbs ground cumin

2 Tbs Paprika

3 Tbs good quality chili powder

dash Cayenne pepper

2 – 6 Oz can tomato paste

2 --6 Oz cans mild, diced chili peppers (OPT)

32 Oz tomato sauce OR 32 oz can diced tomatoes – drained.

6 ripe plum tomatoes, halved down the middle – then cut in thirds cross-wise – or whatever!

2 Tbs honey, molasses or brown sugar

3 Cups beef broth

3 Oz unsweetened chocolate, finely ground (OPT).

2 beef bouillon cubes

Condiments: Whatever combinations of the below is to your taste

Sour Cream

Shredded cheddar or jack cheese

Chopped onion

Dices mild banana pepper rings

Diced pimentos - drained

Like the recipe for “The Sauce,” if you don’t have three hours to let the chili simmer – don’t make chili!! That said – here we go; The above is a good basic recipe for chili. The items with (OPT) following are optional.. Use them or not. Also, messing around with quantities is a fine way to experiment - and make a chili recipe your own!

Put the kidney beans in a saucepan.. Cover with water + 3”. Bring to a boil. Cover the saucepan. Remove from heat and allow to soak.

Distribute the cumin, salt, pepper, paprika and garlic over the ground meat. Sauté this mixture in a Dutch oven - with olive oil - until the meat is well done. Drain off the fat and juices. Add all the remaining ingredients down to the bouillon cubes (excepting only the kidney beans). Stir! Bring to a simmer. Cover – and let simmer three hours – stirring to the bottom every hour. Do stir it once (to the bottom) after the first 15 minutes - to make sure it is not beginning to burn on the bottom.

After 1 Hour, drain the water from the kidney beans and add them to the chili. Also, take a large sample spoonful in a dish. Allow it to cool a couple of minutes - and taste it carefully. You’re looking for enough of salt?? General flavor level (Add more bouillon cubes).. Enough chili flavor?? (Add more chili powder).. Spicy enough?? (Add a few dashes of Cayenne pepper to zap it up).. Too thick?? (Add more beef bullion concentrate).. Too Thin?? Increase heat with the lid removed. Allow to get to a good simmer uncovered - and let it simmer until the right thickness... THEN, Serve.. Add condiments.. Pig out!!

Grumpsy’s Prize Winning Chili -

In March, 2008 I entered a chili cook-off in our home-town - competing against 25 other contestants and I won 2^nd place – in spite of the fact that I knew no-one at the event.. This was damn good chili. Certain other rules apply to contest chili and frankly these rules do in fact make a better chili.. A primary difference between ‘everyday’ chili - and contest chili - is the meat.. Contest chili is expected to have a firmer texture and bigger flavor than can normally be created with ordinary ground beef. I made my meat for this chili as below (and I made a really large quantity as we were serving to a lot of people.

1 4 lb flat-cut beef brisket, well trimmed

1 4 lb slab boneless pork country-style rib meat.

2 lbs ground buffalo

(I would have used buffalo brisket also – but couldn’t find any)

The meats were prepped as follows: Prepared a dry-rub of 1/3 cup high quality chili powder, 1/3 cup paprika, 2 Tbs ground garlic powder, 4 Tbs ground cumin, ¼ cup salt. Each meat was packed with this mixture, wrapped tightly in heavy aluminum foil and placed in the refrigerator for three days.

On the fourth day, the foil packages were removed from refrigeration and ½ cup bottled chili sauce was added to each package (smeared on the meat & dry-rub). The packages were resealed, placed in shallow baking dishes to catch any leakage and placed in an oven at 220 degrees – overnight! Actually, the beef brisket was going to need 10-12 hours, the pork about 8 and the ground buffalo (only 2 lbs) about 3 hours – so I adjusted starting times to let them be done roughly together..

The packages were opened to save the juices and set aside the meat. The brisket and country rib meats were roughly cut across the grain in ¾ in strips – then shredded across the grain with a pair of forks. Ground buffalo was fork-shredded evenly.

The juices from all were allowed to settle and the fat skimmed from the top.

The shredded meat was mixed together and entered into the Dutch oven(s) where the recipe then picks up following the sautéing of the meat, above – except that I replaced 1 ½ cups of beef broth with the like quantity of the meat juices.

Other differences with making a competition chili: Do not try to thicken with flour.. Judges can taste that..

In my case, I began worrying over thickness early-on – and intentionally used only 3/4 the amounts of beef broth and diced tomatoes as specified above… Then I added amounts of both of those as needed. In other words, I started with the chili too thick on purpose - and added either diced tomatoes (for sweetness) or beef broth (for savory richness) based on what the dish needed during the process.

Now the issue of HEAT.. My plan was to create heat not by using cayenne or other dried peppers – but rather by increasing amounts of natural, fresh peppers. For the sake of discussion, Poblano peppers have a nice “chili pepper” flavor, but are very mild with a minimum bite. I used Poblanos in each chili for flavor. Next up the pepper chain would be Anaheims.. A little hotter - but still livable. (but not as much flavor as Poblanos). At the middle of the pepper heat discussion is Cayenne (ground red pepper), and Jalapenos. Both are very “up-front” heat.. (When it hits your mouth, you know it’s hot!). For my medium chili I used natural Jalapenos and Anaheim’s. For my hot it was Jalapenos and Habanera peppers (could have used Scotch Bonnet for super hot instead – I picked Habanera because they looked better in the store that day. Unlike jalapenos, the Bonnets and Habanera’s are sneaky-hot. You take a bite and don’t notice anything immediately.. Then the heat begins to build in the back of your mouth - and boy does it build, and build and build!!).

As I said, my plan was that all of the heat would come from natural peppers – so as the cooking was coming to the last hour, I regularly tasted samples and added diced peppers to gradually built the heat to a level which I liked. It’s important to allow the chili to simmer at least 15 minutes after adding more peppers before re-tasting. This allows the flavor and heat of the peppers to assimilate out into the chili..

(Great care needs to be taken in working with the really hot peppers. (Habaneras or Scotch Bonnet. In my case – even though I didn’t think I was getting any juice from the peppers while preparing them - about ½ hour after working with the peppers, my hands

began burning horribly – which didn’t stop for hours!

Rough amounts to start with for a batch of chili using 2 lbs meat: For a “mild” chili, add 2 whole Poblano peppers coarsely chopped at least 1 hour before cooking is complete. For a “medium” chili, add about 4 Jalapenos or Anaheim’s. For a “hot” chili, Use 6 Jalapenos (finely chopped), but add 4 to 6 habaneras, also finely chopped. These quantities vary by widely by season and source of the peppers – so best practice is to start with ½ the recommended amount – Let it cook for ½ hour, and try it! Then, adjust.

(Thanks Dad!)