Need Winning Chili Recipe

The faculty of my high school is having a chili cook off next Friday and I need a winner. I have looked through some old posts about chili and am wondering if anyone would be able to help me with a simple yet super tasty recipe that would use readily available ingredients. I've little experience with chili so details would be great in terms of preparation. I'm sure the people here would not mind beans or lack thereof so any style would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Thomas

What style are you interested in? "Real" chili has chunks of meat, no beans and no tomatoes. Are there any rules?

A few years back I entered a chili cook off at a local bar with a crock pot full of Wendy's chili, just to see how it would do. I took second place.

Try recipe from Joy of Cooking "Chili con Carne". Has variation to add beans also.

A keeper in our house. If spicyness/hotness is too much...cut back on jalapenos and/or chili powder. Note: this chili is made with chunks of beef (NOT ground beef). Good toppings are: cheddar cheese, sour cream, macaroni shells, onions.....

i use half lean ground beef, half ground turkey. generally about a pound and a half of each.

dice an onion, sweat it in a bit of oil. add salt and pepper. add meats, sautee until meat is fully cooked, then keep cooking until meat is almost dry. make a well in the center and pull out some of the grease/water.

let meat fry a bit, browning, and add spices. i generally use cumin, adobo seasoning, ground chiles like santa fe, guajillo, ancho, and chipotle for heat. don't use "chili powder". i like to add a bit of dried mustard and also some cinnamon. fry the spices with the meat for a while until their color darkens and you can smell the spices toasting. (i'm no good with quantities. i eyeball everything.)

add a bottle of dark beer. bass is good, as is sam adams or negro modelo. reduce until nearly dry.

add a large can of 'crushed' tomatoes, and a small can of 'tomato sauce', add a large can's worth of water, reduce the heat and allow to simmer for a while. an hour or more, depending on your schedule.

allow liquid to reduce until chili is a bit looser than you'd like it before adding two cans of light red kidney beans. stir, cover if consistency is right where you want it, or leave uncovered if it needs to tighten up a bit more. let it go a few more minutes (10 at most) to heat beans through.

taste. adjust seasoning with salt and/or tabasco.

serve with grated co-jack, sour cream, and sliced scallions.




(i'm not a chili purist. i grew up in chicago and this is the type of chili i know and enjoy. i make no apologies for the beans or ground meats. it's a good tasty recipe. feel free to flame me.)

why not use chili powder? just curious?

Snark wrote:why not use chili powder? just curious?

I'm assuming it's because chili powder is someone else's idea as to what quantities and which chiles should go into the mix...as well as cumin and oregano...

It's better to dry and grind your own, or, failing that, buy pre-ground individual chiles and spices from a reputable purveyor.

I'm not an advocate of the smooth-chili sect, common to both Texas contests and hot dog toppings: you have something with the texture of spaghetti sauce (y'know the kind that makes Antonius' ears steam when piled upon a glob of overcooked noodles).

So, things you can do to improve the texture:
1) Chop your meat into small cubes, or use a coarse grind. This gives you some chew to the whole thing.
2) When you sautee the onion, sautee some garlic (not for texture, but fresh garlic is different from powdered) and minced fresh chiles: I usually mix it up between red bell (green has no flavor), jalapeno, and poblano
3) Use diced tomatoes somewhere in the mix

Other notes:
I like black beans in my chili -- adds a hamminess without putting pork in there. Of course, if you like pork, by all means add pork too.
I can't over-emphasize the importance of cumin.
You may need a thickener, especially if you don't add beans. Flour, masa harina, a piece of white bread or a corn tortilla can all help thicken. I like masa, personally.
Other flavoring agents can be used: peanut butter (also thickens), chocolate (use the mexican kind with almonds and cinnamon), but use them sparingly. This isn't mole sauce.
I try not to add water -- it doesn't contribute to flavor. Use chicken broth(more flavor than beef), red wine, white wine, beer (but probably not both wine and beer), tomato juice...
Especially if you won't have the opportunity to serve with fresh lime wedges, add a splash of cider vinegar at the end. It brightens up flavors significantly.

While tacitly on the subject of pork...I've long since put the kibosh on pork products in my Texas(chunks and cubes) chili. This is so all my friends of various religious backgrounds can enjoy the chili love.
What I've found works swimmingly is dropping a dried chipotle(morita) or two in the brew once you've added liquid to the toasting chile/spice paste; it adds subtle smokiness and doesn't affect the heat-level proportionate to the amount of aleppo/cayenne already in there.

I make midwestern soupy chili. I am not ashamed, and we like it!

Saute a chopped onion in some oil, add garlic when almost done. When you smell the garlic (before it burns!) throw in approx 1 lb of your favorite ground meat. I usually use turkey, sometimes ground beef. Haven't tried pork - do NOT use chicken. Stir and cook until it is cooked through. Add spices to taste (I use cumin, a hot chile molido that someone brought me from Santa Fe, oregano) then I add 2 cans of Ro-Tel mexican Fiesta tomatoes (otherwise I'd use the regular Ro-Tel and add cilantro and lime juice). I also add approx 1 cup frozen corn kernels and 1 can drained and rinsed beans (usually small white ones, but whatever) Simmer. Serve with rice if you want.

Some years ago, I had to give a series of parties on behalf of a Texas organization. They swore by Wick Fowler's and I have to say it made darn good chili.

With JoelF and Christopher Gordon, I believe a big difference is in the meat -- diced or coarsely chopped meat makes much better chili than ground beef. In Texas, you can find "chili meat" in the supermarket. Here, you may have to put in a special order or chop it yourself.

The Texas experience also converted me on the question of beans -- beans have no business in chili.

why not use chili powder? just curious?

as christopher correctly guessed above, it's partly because chili powder is someone else's ratio of spices. i find those blends to be fairly 'dumbed down' as they don't contribute very much heat or real chile flavor, regardless of how much you dump in.

they also contains salt, and i like to be in control of how much salt i use, relative to the heat and chile flavor.

another reason is that i buy high quality spices from places like penzey's, spice house, and a vendor that i use for work, so i'm getting good quality, pure, fresh chile powders made from specific chiles.

with grocery-store-bought "chili powder", who knows how long ago the chiles were ground? that stuff's been ground, mixed, processed with 'anti-caking agents', warehoused, purchased and shipped by three or five different people, and sat on the shelf for an undetermined period of time before i happened upon it.

no thanks. chili, for me, is an opportunity to showcase the various dried, ground chiles we're lucky enough to have fairly easy access to these days. i tend to make a different blend every time i make chili, since i'm always wanting to try out new types of chile powder and see what they're like. i generally use two mild-to-medium types and then chipotle for heat.

The Griffins made a recipe we are calling "Quattros Quattros Chili" for our Chicago Beer Society picnic. It was four meats, four chiles. No Beans. Based on a recipe I found called "Old Buffalo Breath" from Chili Scholar John Thorne.

First we went to Peoria Packing
and picked up chunks of meat: 6 lb boneless Pork Picnic Ham, 3 lb Beef Stew Meat, 3 lb Lamb Chunks and 3 lb Hot links.

The Pork, Beef and Lamb were coated in a paste of 3 chiles: Ancho, Morita and Mulato. (Dried peppers reconsituted in water, drained, and put in food processor with garlic cloves. mexican oregano and cumin. Pasted on meat, and left to marinate for several hours or overnight. Based on Bayless "Essential Sweet and Spicy Seasoning Paste.")

Then we lightly smoked the Pork and Beef over hickory chunks and seared them on the grill. Brought them inside and after they cooled chopped them into the smallest cubes we had patience for, and browned them in Ralph (our dutch oven) in chili oil.



Seared beef, smoked pork ham, browned cubed meat, meat going into pot

Also, cut up the lamb into small pieces and browned it.
The hot links were smoked on the grill then cut.



Lamb chunks, all meats in pot, hot links, stir

Sauteed some more garlic and started adding meat back into Ralph. Stir. Added a cup or so of stock (I had duck stock in the freezer) and a beer to cover, 1+ tablespoons mexican oregano and 2 tablespoons of toasted fresh ground cumin. Simmered on low heat (but high enough to break down meat) for 6-8 hours. (halfway we add some piquin chile powder for heat, and one small can of tomato paste and one can of chopped tomatoes for balance). Also added some masa for body throughout.

Stored overnight in fridge, rewarmed in oven next day.

Result: Quattros Quattros Chili
Hickory Smoked Hot Links, Pork, Beef, and Lamb seared with Ancho, Morita, Mulato and Piquin Peppers.
Served with Poblano Cornbread.



And yes, we forgot to take a closeup of the finished product.
It went well with Alpha Kong (16% strong and sweet Three Floyds beer, pictured at right), which may have contributed to me forgetting to take a final pic!

The result: We did not place in the popular vote. Some people raved about our chili, but apparently others were confused by the lack of beans and spaghetti sauce.

Happily, this year a blind tasting was instituted and run by a bona fide food judge (ribs) and our efforts were recognized. Voted best chili by a panel of blind, unprejudiced judges.



Moral of the story: if its a popular vote, bring Wendy's or open a can.


*please ignore the timestamp on the photos, of course the date/time was not set correctly

Regarding Wendy's chili: My sister-in-law used to be a manager at a Wendy's store. She told me that their chili is made from the oldest meat that is about to expire. In order not to waste any meat, prior to midnight on any given day the manager must "cook-down" any meat that would expire that day. This "cooked-down" meat was then used for the chili. So any time you get chili at Wendy's, it is made from the near-expiration ground beef. Not so appetizing to know...

YoYoPedro wrote:Regarding Wendy's chili: My sister-in-law used to be a manager at a Wendy's store. She told me that their chili is made from the oldest meat that is about to expire. In order not to waste any meat, prior to midnight on any given day the manager must "cook-down" any meat that would expire that day. This "cooked-down" meat was then used for the chili. So any time you get chili at Wendy's, it is made from the near-expiration ground beef. Not so appetizing to know...

Really?

I can't imagine there's any "cooking" going on at Wendy's. Doesn't it make more sense that they receive pouches of cryo-vac'd chili from headquarters and heat it up?

Christopher Gordon wrote:Really?

I can't imagine there's any "cooking" going on at Wendy's. Doesn't it make more sense that they receive pouches of cryo-vac'd chili from headquarters and heat it up?

It's all about the profits. If they threw out the meat when it expired, there go some profits. She actually got written up by the owner for failing to "cook-down" (their term) some meat one night before closing and it had to be thrown out. That was a big no-no. The whole reason they make and offer the chili is as a means to dispose of the near-waste from the burger operation.

It's the same kind of thinking behind pasteurized processed cheese food spread (aka Merkt's, etc.) It is made from the trimmings and floor sweepings from the cutting room at the cheese factory where they are cutting 40lb. blocks into 2lb., 1 lb., and 8 oz. portions. The little stuff gets ground up and cooked into cheese spread. Voila! Profits from near-waste!

A long time ago, I was an assistant manager at Wendy's. When we made hamburgers, we had to serve them fresh and they couldn't stay on the grill for more than 5 to 7 minutes. If they were on longer and were not sold, we put them aside for "chili meat." There was nothing wrong with the meat per se, it was just a little dry to put on a hamburger.

I assume they still do it that way. We made our own patties every day and I must say that the quality of the hamburger meat was very good as it was gound to Wendy's specs and was about 90% lean if I remember correctly.

YoYoPedro wrote:

Christopher Gordon wrote:Really?

I can't imagine there's any "cooking" going on at Wendy's. Doesn't it make more sense that they receive pouches of cryo-vac'd chili from headquarters and heat it up?

It's all about the profits. If they threw out the meat when it expired, there go some profits. She actually got written up by the owner for failing to "cook-down" (their term) some meat one night before closing and it had to be thrown out. That was a big no-no. The whole reason they make and offer the chili is as a means to dispose of the near-waste from the burger operation.

It's the same kind of thinking behind pasteurized processed cheese food spread (aka Merkt's, etc.) It is made from the trimmings and floor sweepings from the cutting room at the cheese factory where they are cutting 40lb. blocks into 2lb., 1 lb., and 8 oz. portions. The little stuff gets ground up and cooked into cheese spread. Voila! Profits from near-waste!

interestin'!

but, you've put me off processed cheese spreads for the time being

LTH,

I like it hot, most do not, which often leads to, if not trouble, at least a minor taste bud skirmish or two. Keeping this in mind I made large batch, well over a gallon, of chili for my wife to bring to a recently widowed family member's house. I knew there would be a number of spice sensitive folks so I made a straight up Midwestern style chili instead of my usual amped up chunks of beef no beans 5-6 chile type tongue scorcher.

I used The Spice House's med-chili blend as a base, ground hamburger meat, three kinds of beans (yes beans) and tried my hardest to keep my itching trigger finger off the spice grinder. Even with the spice reducing add-ins I sent along, grated cheese, saltines, sour cream, the consensus was the chili verged on inedibly spicy. ~sigh~

OK, maybe I should not have added 3 minced serrano peppers to the initial saute of garlic and onion, resisted the urge, midway through cooking, to add a bit of ancho, guajullo, pequin and a couple of glugs of Bufalo Chipotle hot sauce. Ooooops..

I also added beer, beef stock, crushed plum tomatoes, tomato paste, kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans, additional toasted ground cumin, and a finishing slurry of corn meal to thicken.

I liked the chili, though, in retrospect, maybe I should have left out the serrano and pequin.

Moral of the story, keep in mind who you are cooking for.

Enjoy,
Gary

I'm still working on the spices, but I do have one part down: what I like for the meat: The outsides of Costco rib-eye steaks. I save up a pound and a half of it, and run it through my food processor on pulse until it's a chunky grind maybe 3-4x the thickness of hamburger meat.

Then I brown the meat until it is medium rare, cool it, and freeze it. That way, when I want to make a batch of chili, I can focus on the liquids, onions, and tomatoes, and just add the meat when appropriate.

Next time, I'm going to move adding the dried spices to the meat browning process, and focus on the stock for the chili. Last time, I had to switch pots because the darned mix of peppers, onions, a small amount of beans, and chunked tomatoes settled, stuck, and burned.

http://www.timeout.com/chicago/Details. ... recipe.xml

I will even go as far as telling you the ingredients I left off the list...also add

1 package of Chili man's Chili seasoning
also grill all the peppers
1 small can of diced pimento
2 small cans of chopped green chili's
Adobo seasoning
2 tsp of pimenton


actually I pretty much used lots of seasonings so just use what you have that would work well in chili

Enjoy!

I won our SuperBowl Office Chili Cook off with this recipe this week. Sweet, smoky and spicy was my mantra for the contest:

2 Sam Adams beers
2 1/2 pounds skirt steak cut into 1 inch chunks
2 1/2 lbs "meat loaf mix" ground pork, ground beef, ground veal
1 lb coarsely ground chuck
1 lb chorizo, skin removed
1/2 lb Beef Garlic Summer Sausage ala Hickory Farms
1 tbsp dried mexican oregano
6 tbsp Spice House Hot Chili Powder
6 tbsp Spice House Mild Chili Powder
2 tbsp Spice House Chili Con Carne Base Spice Mix
2 Large Onions diced
8 cloves garlic minced
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp sweet paprika
1 Can Chipotles in Adobo chopped with adobo reserved
1 Red Bell Pepper diced
1 4oz can mild chopped green chilis with juice
2 28 oz cans crushed tomatoes
2 28 oz can black beans drained
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
1/3 cu Masa Harina
1/3 cu water
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive Oil

To a heavy hot stock pot add a three count of Olive Oil. Season all of the meat with 1 Tbsp of each of the chili seasonings. Brown off all of the meat in batches so as to not overcrowd the pan. While the meat browns, in a separate large pan, begin carmelizing the onions, bell peppers, chipotles, and canned canned mild peppers in a two count of olive oil.

Drain the meat of excess fat leaving 1/3 cup for flavor and return it to the heavy stcok pot. Add garlic to meat mixture letting it cook for 2-4 minutes until softened. Ad the remainig sauteed vegetables to the meat mixture folding it in. Add the remaining chili spice mixes, cumin and paprika to the meat and vegetables. Add two bottle of beer allowing it to reduce by half over medium high heat.

When the beer has reduced add the two cans tomato puree, black beans, brown sugar, balsamic and the remaing adobo from the chipotles to the mixture.

Simmer gently for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Serve with shredded cheddar and sour cream.

Will,

You may not eat with gusto any more, though you sure do cook with gusto!

Congratulations!

Regards,

I made the chile con carne recipe from the Joy of Cooking (it calls for cubed beef chuck) on PBand Fluff's recommendation for a Super Bowl party later today. I used a combination of Chimayo, Guajillo and Ancho chile powders (as well as Mexican oregano and cumin) and added a bottle of beer. I thought it turned out great! Thanks for the rec. I really wanted to try YourPalWill's recipe but I'm living in Wisconsin** for the year and it's not really a foodie crowd here (the subtleties of a combo of skirt steak, chorizo, etc might be wasted on them). Next year I plan to give it a whirl--it sounds great.

**Not meant to be a slight against the epicureans of Wisconsin, it's just that the crowd I'm hanging with for the Superbowl isn't all that adventurous.

I made the Red Pork Chili from epicurious.com yesterday and used pork tenderloin instead of pork shoulder and substituted a cup of guinness for the water. It turned out really well although it could have been a bit spicier so next time I'll add an extra jalapeno.

I normally look askance at the Terlingua specifics: Venusian .03 Mexicali Mix ca. 1973, kiss two organic psylocibin-hybrid moritas, cross yrself twice before a statue of our lady bleeding from both pits, etc...

however, inspired by the terrible cold and dieses thread, I wrassled up a big cast-iron pot o' red exchanging my usual pure water and beef drippings *for* beef drippings+water+........beef broth

it actually makes a difference!

: deepening the concomittant chile alchemy in a way water, no matter how Brita'd, just don't

Da Beef wrote:http://www.timeout.com/chicago/Details.do?page=2&xyurl=xyl://TOCWebArticles2/91/eat_out_drink_up/toc_second_annual_chili_cook_off_s_winning_recipe.xml

I will even go as far as telling you the ingredients I left off the list...also add

1 package of Chili man's Chili seasoning
also grill all the peppers
1 small can of diced pimento
2 small cans of chopped green chili's
Adobo seasoning
2 tsp of pimenton


actually I pretty much used lots of seasonings so just use what you have that would work well in chili

Enjoy!

Da Beef,
How many servings does this make? I realize that this may be a difficult question to answer. Also, how big were those ribeyes? Did you leave them rare b/c they'd be cooking in the overall mixture later?

Here's the recipe for what won me a chili cookoff on Championship Sunday.

1/2 lb or so of mild chorizo
4-5 onions, chopped
6-7 garlic cloves, chopped
7-8 serrano peppers, finely diced
2-3 Tbs or so of fresh ground cumin seeds
2 bay leaves
2 cinnamon sticks
two 3-4lb bone-in pork shoulders seasoned with S+P
one 12 oz bottle Sierra Nevada Pale Ale or other beer with lots of hops
1 quart or so of brown stock (chicken, beef, pork, whatever)
4 poblano peppers, roasted, peeled, and large-diced
8 tomatillos, roasted for about 45 minutes, then pureed in a blender
fresh cilantro and crema or sour cream for serving

In a large dutch oven, cook the chorizo over low heat to render the fat, then drain and return the fat to the pot. Sweat the onions, garlic, and serranos in the chorizo fat, with the cumin and some S+P, until translucent. Remove and set aside. In the same pot, brown the pork shoulders one at a time, on all sides. If your stove's hood is as crappy as mine, now's a good time to put on a jacket and open a window in the kitchen. Or shut off your smoke detector. Add the onion mixture back into the pot with the pork, bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, beer, and stock. Let come to barely a simmer, then cover and place in 250 degree for about 4 hours. More is fine. Remove the meat and shred it with a couple of forks. At this point, the best thing to do is refrigerate the liquid separately from everything else. Then, the next day, remove the hardened layer of fat from the liquid and return it to the pot with the shredded meat, tomatillo puree, previously cooked chorizo, and poblanos and you're done. The longer it sits around the better it'll be. Day 3 is ideal. Serve with some fresh cilantro and a dollop of crema or sour cream