I won first place, thanks to AskMe November 26, 2005 6:59 PM   Subscribe

Results for Chili question on AskMe
posted by RustyBrooks to MetaFilter-Related at 6:59 PM (23 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite

I won first place! I basically took a good look at all the recipes given, and all the little bits of advice, got a bunch of ingredients and started throwing everything together. The main thing I tried that deviated from most recipes:

* roasting 3 out of 4 of all the chiles I used. I used a combination of larger, milder chiles, and a few smaller ones like jalapenos.

* using a blended mixture of stock and dried chile pods instead of chili powder. This made a thick paste, much like tomato sauce. In fact I used about half as much tomato paste as usual and used this instead of the rest. This gave a great smoky flavor to it.

* I did use chocolate, and cinnamon. Although no one noticed.

* I used beef that I cut up instead of hamburger. I also used a smallish amount of beef. Probably every other spoonful would have some beef in it, which was nice without being overwhelming.

Anyway, it was overwhelmingly in my favor, with 9 votes. The nearest competitor was 5 votes. Thanks for all the advice.
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:03 PM on November 26, 2005


Congratulations!
posted by ludwig_van at 7:07 PM on November 26, 2005


I trust people were seeing the Cosmic Coyote that very afternoon.
posted by ab'd al'Hazred at 7:09 PM on November 26, 2005


Sounds delicious. Congrats!
posted by LeeJay at 7:17 PM on November 26, 2005


Take THAT space coyote.

It actually was nice and spicy, although that didn't kick in until a few seconds after eating it. There was a nice wide variety of de-spiceners handy, also. Oyster crackers, spagetti, rice, etc. I had my first few bowls straight up but soon after I decided it might be wise so I started alternating with spaghetti and oyster crackers. And, of course, plenty of beer. One of my uncles is really into beer and so he brought along a dozen or so novel varieties to try out. My mother-in-law made a set of really great cheescakes, and there were all kinds of leftovers from thanksgiving, including the pies that my cousin made (she's a graduate from the cordon bleu school, specializing in pastry). My family, and my wife's family, is really into food so it was a great night.
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:19 PM on November 26, 2005


The chili question in question.
posted by my sock puppet account at 7:21 PM on November 26, 2005


Sorry, of course, I should have linked to it.
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:24 PM on November 26, 2005


excellent--post the recipe for us
posted by amberglow at 7:54 PM on November 26, 2005


Uh.. OK, this is as close as it's going to get to a recipe.

I roasted 3 anheim chiles, 2 jalapenos, and 2 or 3 red bell peppers. I cut those up and saved them for later.

I took 6 or 7 chile pods (probably anheim?) and de-seeded them, and food processed them into a paste with some olive oil and water. A consistency somewhat like tomato paste, and a similar taste. These really are not that spicy but taste great.

I took a big old texas yellow onion, and chopped it up. Probably 2 cups of onion. I sauteed that with 8 cloves of crushed garlic and one chopped bell pepper. Once that was softened and reduced, I added two chopped portobello mushrooms. Sauteed some more until this was reduced.

I took a pound or so of stew beef, and cut it up into much smaller pieces. I mixed this with all my dry spices, which was cumin (fresh ground), some chipotle chile powder, a little oregano, maybe a little bit of this and that but that's mostly it. I browned this, and added it to the onion-mushroom-pepper mix. I added lots of fresh ground pepper and some salt. I added 2 cans of black beans and a can of kidney beans. I mixed in the chile paste and the chopped roasted chiles from before. I put in a can or two of tomato sauce. So now it's starting to look and taste a bit like chili. Oh and I probably added some beef stock at this point.

I let this simmer for a half hour. Then I added a third cup of brown sugar, a third cup of balsamic vinegar, a couple squares of unsweetened chocolate, grated. And a little cinnamon. Adjusted the liquid levels a bit to keep a *little* bit of liquid in it. Let this cook for another hour or two, until the meat was really tender.

And that's pretty much it.
posted by RustyBrooks at 8:04 PM on November 26, 2005


Oh, I sauteed one chopped fresh jalapeno with the onions, I almost forgot, and maybe half of a anheim chile.

Bonus: I wore gloves during all the chile handling. Once a few years ago I harvested some chile peppers that I had planted in my garden, and made my patented chile vinagrette. It's awesome. But, I got some on my fingers and they burned all damn night. It was terrible. I was soaking my fingers in ten dozen kinds of home remedies. Oil, milk, yogurt, you name it. It finally wore off after a few terrible hours. Just easier to wear gloves and throw caution to the wind.
posted by RustyBrooks at 8:06 PM on November 26, 2005


my patented chile vinagrette. It's awesome.

Spill it, Rusty. For all the help you got the least you can do is post this too. :)
posted by terrapin at 8:58 PM on November 26, 2005


thanks!
posted by amberglow at 9:42 PM on November 26, 2005


The salad dressing comment was really sort of a joke. It is pretty good I guess but it's nothing special. It's a vinagrette that's a little heavier on balsamic vinegar than normal, but whipped up (food processor or blender) into an emulsification with a well chopped spicy pepper (be careful, it can get quite hot, quick). This is really nice over a pretty plain salad, some field greens or something. We like to cook but sometimes we just want to get food on the table. A really simple salad like this takes like 5 minutes but it's a little different, so that's nice.
If you like oil/vinegar salad dressing in general, it's really easy to experiment by adding different flavors. Essential oils, or spices (lots of fresh spices make good vinagrettes -- put the spice in with the vinegar a day or so in advance to get a good infusion), fruits, nuts, etc. Along the same vein you can make "pesto" out of just about anything. You need something vegetableish, something nuttish and something cheesish. When I was making the chili today, I made sort of a paste out of the dried chilis, and it was so much like pesto in consistency that it made me think of how good something like a pine nut - dried chili - romano pesto could be.
posted by RustyBrooks at 10:18 PM on November 26, 2005


Sounds yummy. Congratulations!
posted by kosher_jenny at 2:16 AM on November 27, 2005


Congrats, Rusty! I'm definately going to have to try this out some time.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 2:19 AM on November 27, 2005


People put cut up hamburgers in Chilli o_O?
posted by fire&wings at 2:43 AM on November 27, 2005


No, ground beef that is often used to make burgers.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 8:00 AM on November 27, 2005


Cocoa powder is a better substitute than grated chocolate. The 10th Anniversary Chili Recipe found in the Chez Piggy Cookbook recommends 2 tsps, and it helps give a nice earthy aroma to the pot.
posted by furtive at 8:10 AM on November 27, 2005


I am compelled to link Listening to Habaneros (courtesy of Making Light).
posted by Jeanne at 10:33 AM on November 27, 2005


RustyBrooks writes "I took 6 or 7 chile pods (probably anheim?) and de-seeded them, and food processed them into a paste with some olive oil and water. A consistency somewhat like tomato paste, and a similar taste. These really are not that spicy but taste great."

I wish I had seen this before. Here in New Mexico, nobody eats Anaheim green chile. We eat hotter varieties, but they also have more flavor and are usually roasted right after picking, which I think would make your recipe even better. Not big on Anaheim chile, but I cannot live without green chile from Hatch Farms in New Mexico. It's one of the reasons I had to move back here, as you can't really find this sort of chile outside the state. It can be mixed into tex-mex chili (which is not the same as chile), but it's not often eaten that way here. However, once you have Hatch, you'll never want Anaheim again.
posted by krinklyfig at 1:50 PM on November 27, 2005


Even though I'm in texas, I had a pretty limited selection of available mild chiles. There are lots of spicy ones, like habanero or jalapeno, but you just want about 3 or so of those. I don't actually know what the dried ones were, they were the only dried ones there and I just grabbed them. Anaheims were the only fresh green chiles they had.
posted by RustyBrooks at 2:35 PM on November 27, 2005


Congrats!
posted by Jon-o at 5:14 PM on November 27, 2005


Well, shit. Now I'm hungry.
posted by Tlogmer at 4:10 AM on November 28, 2005 [1 favorite]


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