Rude Epiphany!

original source: http://www.chili.org/cwallace.html

There’s a minor feud in Texas about what is proper chili — with or without beans. The above recipe is from Colleen Wallace who is in the “no bean” camp. I whipped up a batch (as close as I could get) for a Halloween dinner party and it was well received by everyone there; adults, teenagers, children alike.

I ladled up my bowl of “meat soup” and it seemed much thinner than what I had as “chili” as a child. The first thing I did was grabbed a fistful of saltine crackers and crushed them into the chili to thicken it up. As I was enjoying my bowl, I noticed that everyone else did exactly the same thing.

The missing ingredient? Beans.

I took the wining formula used in the above recipe and made some minor changes to thicken it up and use available spices. I chose black beans specifically for their thickening qualities and to be a little different from the norm (which is to use kidney beans).

I went to Spice Barn, http://spicebarn.com/ for the hard-to-find spices, such as ground jalapeno pepper. While there, I decided to use their premium chili powder as well as granulated onion and garlic.

For the other spices, I picked them up at the local grocery store. Williams Chili Powder is a packet powder found at Kroger, for example.

Here’s the recipe, enjoy:

Early prep:
Beans – 1 pound black beans
clean beans (pick out small pebbles, split/withered beans)
cover beans with cold water,
- let sit for 5 minutes,
- agitate,
- pick out anything that floats,
- drain
repeat and drain
cover beans with cold water, soak beans for at least 2 hours

Cooking:
Bring beans to boil (use fresh water),
- no salt or spices,
- let simmer while preparing meat

Meat – 2-1/2 pounds of stew meat
- cut into smaller cubes, remove fat and gristle

Brown meat in 1/2 teaspoon Crisco with Lowry’s or Spice Barn seasoned salt.
note: this works well in a 10″ iron skillet

Add to meat:
1 14oz can – Swanson Beef Broth (Chicken broth works fine)
1 8oz can – tomato sauce
water to cover meat plus 1 inch (add water as needed)

Low boil meat sauce for 30min

Combine beans and meat and add:
1 tbsp – Williams Chili Powder
1 tbsp – Granulated Onion
1 tsp – Granulated Garlic
1/2 tsp – Cayenne Pepper
1/4 tsp – Ground Jalapeno Pepper
1 tsp – Beef Bouillon Granules (one cube)
1 tsp – Chicken Bouillon Granules (one cube)
1/2 tsp – Salt

Slow bubble for one hour

Add:
4 tsp – Cumin
1 tsp – Granulated Garlic
1/4 tsp – Course-ground Black Pepper
1 package – Sazon Goya
6 tbsp – Spice Barn Premium Chili Powder
1/4 tsp – Brown Sugar

Slow bubble for 45 minutes

Can be served immediately.

Also can let sit overnight in refrigerator to allow chili to thicken
and let flavors blend — slightly different flavor, also very good.

The end-result is a spicy enough to bring a bead of sweat to my brow. I’m not into spicy-hot food, so this would qualify as mid-range heat: a bit hot for the wimps, a bit mild for the macho types.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 at 2137 and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.