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This is my first ICSA. Basically the goons over in TFF mentioned there was a chili cookoff so I took a look and that inspired me to make some chili and post about it on the Internet. Here is the Imgur gallery of the chili-making images, for your convenience: https://imgur.com/a/KCPCI. All of these images are in the post, below, but if you hate words you can just skim through the gallery and get the general idea. Approach OK let me start off by saying, I am not a chili cooking person. I mean I must have made a pot of hamburger, beans, and chili flavoring from a packet once or twice when I was in college, but I have only vague memories of that. At the very least, it's been over 20 years since I made anything resembling a chili. Moreover while my stepdad has Opinions About Chili (he has opinions about most food), I do not have any sort of family recipe to fall back on here. Instead, I took a more improvisational approach to this pot of chili. I generally take one of two possible approaches to making a dish; following a recipe, and not following a recipe. The former is completely mandatory for baking, of course, where you are essentially repeating a chemistry experiment, and the proportions are critical. When I am just gonna make something I haven't made much before, I also will usually download a recipe or grab one off the internet and follow the instructions. I am good at following instructions - I write instructions for a living and am generally in favor of them. But there are also some kinds of dishes where I feel disinclined to do that. These are dishes that I would call "robustly modifiable" - dishes where you can clearly gently caress around and get away with it. Dishes with a lot of leeway. A good example is a marinara sauce, and even better one is soup. You can boil up pretty much whatever you want in a pot and if it's still at least somewhat liquid when you serve it, you can call it soup, right? Does it matter exactly how much carrot you put in? Is it not gonna be soup if you decided to add some sage but leave out the marjoram this time? No, of course not. And is the soup gonna be terrible if you put in two tablespoons of parsley instead of one? No, of course not, it'll just be different. I am also happy and prefer to improvise when I am adding seasonings I'm familiar with to a meat or a fish of some kind. I can get a fillet of salmon or a pound of ground beef or a bunch of chicken parts and just grab things off the spice rack and build a dish. It's possible to go wrong if you have no idea, like, I dunno, you could heavily coat a piece of chicken with star anise and tarragon and it probably would not be great. But for every possibility of going wrong there are a thousand ways to go right, and by taking an improvisational approach and just flying by the seat of your pants, you are way more likely to wind up with something a little different than what you had before, but still good, and that means you get to enjoy more variety, and that's good! So I decided to take that approach with my chili. I read through some of the other ICSA 67 entries, checked out a half-dozen recipes online, and figured I had a good grasp of the essentials and options, and then I went ahead and bought stuff and made a chili. This also means I am not presenting to you someone else's chili - it's my chili, even though before today I did not really have my own chili. Here is the chili I made. First, I got some ingredients.       I was not sure if I would use all of these ingredients but I wanted all of this stuff on hand. What we have here are some dried chilies (guajillo, ancho, california), fresh chilies (jalapenos, anaheims, and poblanos), a little over five pounds of beef, a pound of chorizo, queso, yellow cornmeal, onions, garlic, paprika, smoked paprika, whole cumin, granulated garlic, oregano, onion powder, molasses, avacado honey, salt, powdered unsweetened cocoa, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, and beer. Later, I will get out a couple more ingredients, but I'll mention them now: chicory coffee, apple cider vinegar, cinnamon, ground cumin, creme kefir lebneh, scallion, a sprig of parsley, and ingredients for cornbread. In the end I did not use the yellow onion, the honey, the tomato paste, or the granulated garlic. Preparation: Get out the chimney, stuff it with newspaper, add leftover charcoal from the grill, and top to the brim with charcoal. Here I am using whole lump charcoal, not briquettes: I find them much easier to deal with, and they're not full of gravel.  Got some wood wet. I am using a couple chunks of applewood, plus a couple sticks of seasoned plum wood from my backyard plum. I put it in a little dish of water and weight it down so it will soak up some moisture. It'd be better to soak it for hours but I forgot - even fifteen or twenty minutes is sufficient to keep it from just immediately burning.   Lit up the chimney. There is no reason to ever use lighter fluid. Good charcoal readily ignites with a minute or two of flame under it.  Here's the beef  This is "Carne Res Para Burria" which means beef for... something. It was $5.69 a pound, and looked to be about the amount of leanness that I wanted. When I'm shopping at the local hispanic market, I get good deals, but I'm not always certain what I'm getting. They actually had goat, and I was gonna do a goat chile, but turned out the goat was frozen solid and I was buying this morning so there wasn't going to be time to thaw it properly. The goat had lots of ribs in it, which would have been nice for building a stock, but oh well. I cut the meat into hunks for grilling, trimming fat and reserving it where it was convenient to do that.  The coals were ready. I am using side baskets for indirect grilling. This is good for a lot of different meats, but essential for smoking.  Seconds before adding the meat, I added the smoking wood pieces. This is why I position the handles over the coals - it makes it possible to add more charcoal if needed later, too, without having to try to lift and shift the grill.  Added the meat  The meat has no seasoning or oil or anything. My grill rack has been used dozens of times, so it's nicely seasoned like a seasoned pan would be. My goal here is entirely to get the smoke flavor, not to make a nice steak to eat, and I didn't want to draw moisture out by salting the meat early either. I had the peppers ready and was hoping to get them on at the same time, but there wasn't room. I set the holes nearly closed at first:  With the bottom vents wide open, it's essential to restrict airflow, to tamp down the fire. With the holes wide open, I would easily hit or exceed 400F. Closing them down also promotes smoking rather than high flames. The goal here is to smoke the meat and keep temps below 300F if possible. Back inside, I started prepping the dried peppers. I decided this seemed like a good amount:  I didn't really know exactly how much to use, so I guesstimated that this looked like enough. None of these are especially hot varieties, but I decided to remove the seeds along with the stems.  I added a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar and one cup of water, just to cover the chiles, and sat the measuring cup on top to keep them immersed.   These would wind up soaking for probably an hour and a half to two hours, while the meat and the fresh chiles cooked. I think that wound up being enough time. As soon as those were in the bowl I went back out to the grill.  The kettle was running close to 300F, but not smoking much, so I needed to adjust. The beef hunks had scrunched up at this point, which made it possible to rearrange them and make room for the peppers. At this point I put the peppers on whole, with the intent of cooking them more slowly and hopefully getting more smoke flavor that way. While the lid is open, the charcoal kind of flares up. I shifted the smoking wood a little, and got the lid back on with the holes opened up just a little more. I was risking more heat, but needed to get the smoking wood back to smoking again.  A few minutes later. It's going good when there's smoke pouring out the edges of the lid.  I was still right around 300F here. I decided that was OK, not ideal, but to get things cooler I probably needed my smoking wood soaked better so I could put it directly on the burning charcoal and get the dual action of reducing the burn and getting more smoke. Managing a kettle grill to smoke is tricky and sometimes you just go with what's happening rather than screw things up trying to get it perfect. Back inside, I prepped my dry spices.  I'm using a mortar and pestle. We do have a coffee grinder that my wife uses to make chai, but she was not happy with the idea of me contaminating it with chile spices. This is fine anyway. Unfortunately at this point I discovered I only had maybe a teaspoon of whole cumin left. So I threw in another ~tablespoon ish of ground cumin. The ground cumin jar is fresh, so it should still have its flavor. I also added just the smoked paprika, quite a lot of it. I want the smokiness and paprika is pretty mild anyway. I added a good teaspoon ish of onion powder, about the same of oregano, and a little hunk of cinnamon. As you may have gathered, I did not actually measure anything. When I am building spices I just eyeball it. I know which things to only use a little of and which I can go bonkers with, and beyond that, I like to just dump in some of whatever I'm using. I am not precisely measuring the meat, or the temp of cooking, or the length of cooking, or tons of other variables; I don't much see the value in trying to control this particular variable. Every batch should come out a little different. All ground up:  Back out to the grill, probably 30 minutes later:  At this point I realized I needed to slice open my peppers. They were cooking nicely but I recalled I'd be peeling them, and so I should have them open to get the smoke flavor inside. In retrospect I should have split them to start, and gone ahead and seeded them at the same time. No big harm done, though. Lid back on, get the smoking going again, and checked 15m later and I had it down to 250F which made me happy. Started prepping the rest of the stuff. I decided to just go with the white onion, medium chop.  I wanted to use my enameled dutch oven, but I was getting very nervous about capacity. Over five pounds of beef, plus a pound of chorizo, plus all the other stuff... I wanted leeway to add liquid if needed, too. So instead, I got out the big stock pot.  I loving love this pot. It's big enough to turn a whole turkey carcass into stock. We also use it for canning - we can fit six or seven big jars in there to boil, plus use the basket on top (not pictured) to steam the lids before use. Another half hour later or so?  Time to get the meat off. I would have liked to smoke it for at least another hour, but it's firming up too much. I am not making steak, so I did not worry about trying to keep the center rare, but if it cooked too hot for too long it'd dry out too much. It looks really good.  I grabbed a small bit and dipped it in a little salt and ate it and it tasted very good. Decently smokey, good beef flavor, nothing weird going on. You can get a sour taste from smoke if you do it wrong, like using wood that is too green, or going overboard with hickory or I think possibly mesquite, too. I generally stick to fruit woods, I do want to learn to use hickory eventually. OK back out to the grill:  At this point my coals were low, but still hot. I did not want to add more coals just for this last bit, so I put the peppers directly over the coals. I wanted to toast the skins so they'd hopefully peel off better, and also absorb some more of that charcoal flavor that I love. This was just a lid-off, 15m grill. Flipped after ~10m:  And done.  (My phone camera works way better outside on the patio. I want to apologize in advance for the rest of the photos... the lighting in my kitchen is not ideal, and I did not want to try to maneuver around a tripod setup with my good camera.) Peeled, removed stems and seeds:  This part sucked. A few of the peppers peeled easily, but some of them were very difficult, and in the end I left a few bits of peel on. I think I was in a bad midway spot between just quickly toasting or blanching peppers, where there's lots of moist meat to easily peel, and fully dried solid where maybe you just don't care the skins are on there any more. Instead I had a few peppers that were a little leathery, and maybe also once my cutting board got moist, any skins I let sit on it re-glued themselves or something. Anyway it was tedious and took like 20m to do them. At this point I also thought maybe I didn't do enough peppers. I had less in the bowl than I'd been anticipating. Well, onward. I used the giant measuring cup that had been holding the meat, so the meat juices that had dripped off in the interim were still in there. Combined the roasted pepper meat, the reconstituted dry peppers along with the water and vinegar they were in, plus the dry spices, and immersion blended them together.  This tasted pretty good! No salt at all in there yet, but it was a good spicy flavor, not overwhelmingly hot, some good smokeyness, a little sweetness, lots of green pepper flavor. Not much or any umami to it, but I was Garlic.  I wound up doing four large cloves. My first instinct was to do the whole bulb, maybe slice the top off and grill it with the peppers, but I just wasn't sure if I'd had a chile with a lot of garlic before and I did not want to overdo it. Started by browning the trimmed fat from the initial meat prep:  I let that brown on medium-high heat with occasional stirring for about ten minutes. Then I added the onions and garlic.  I let the onions and garlic cook in the fat for another ten minutes or so, stirring occasionally. Initially on high heat, then turned down to low to let them caramalize a little, then back up to medium. I found the onion released a ton of moisture and even after 10m I was not working with just fat, there was still a lot of liquid. So, these were not properly browned in my opinion, but I got some good browning and a little caramalization anyway. Meanwhile, chopped up the beef into pieces. As you maybe can see, they're medium-well, with a decent but not amazing smoke ring. If I'd been able to keep the grill temps down to below 250 or even better like ~210, I could have smoked for another hour, but I think I was wise not to cook this any longer - it was still moist in the inside, but definitely no tender red in the center even of the largest pieces.  I also got out the chorizo and split open the casing. Chorizo went in, with an eye to browning it  But, too much moisture from the onions. It was just cooking. This was a significant error. I should have browned the chorizo before adding the onion and garlic. So after a couple minutes I gave up on getting a brown and just started adding everything. Crushed tomato:  and then the blended pepper and spice mix:  and then the beef pieces and the bottle of beer:  All stirred up  I immediately started checking flavor. I added about a teaspoon of salt, which was still undersalted but I knew it might cook down some and you can always add more salt but you sure can't take it back out. Added one big tablespoon of molasses.  I let that simmer covered on very low heat for about an hour and a half, and checked the flavor again. At this point it was pretty good but I wanted to build a little more richness. So, I added about a teaspoon of this chocolate powder, and dug out the chicory coffee from the freezer.  You'll notice the tomato paste is still there - I wound up not using it. I did not want to risk having an overwhelming tomato flavor, and I already had that big can of crushed tomatoes in there. Made 1.5 cups of dark hot coffee using my "melitta" style ceramic dripper.  And then added half of it (so, 3/4 of a cup) to the pot. Let it simmer another hour. So, at this point, roughly nearly around 3 hours ish on the stove? It was looking like this  which was pretty liquidy. So I threw in about a quarter cup (this is a 1/3 cup measure) of cornmeal to thicken it a little.  While that simmered, I made cornbread in my 10" Lodge.  The cornbread took 30m, so in the end the chili cooked on the stove for about 3.5 hours, give or take. Final prep: a little scallion, the queso, and creme Kefir lebneh, which is a thick, sour cream cheese we tend to use as a substitute for sour cream.  Served:   (I'm particularly annoyed both of these images came out a little blurry. Dammit.) Results The chili was good. It was spicy, but not super spicy. In fact I could have handled it a few notches spicier without ruining it, but I was hoping to keep it mild enough for my wife to enjoy. She liked it but could only eat half a bowl, she is not big on very spicy food. The texture was excellent. I think the beef chunks should have been a bit smaller - as served, it was necessary to pull a few apart using a knife and fork. It did not take much effort to split a hunk, but it did not fall apart with just the edge of a fork, either - so I think another 30m in the pot might have been a good idea, but the cornbread was done and it was dinner time. The big goal was to get a smokey chili and I think this succeeded well. Most of the smoke flavor came from the beef - the smoked parts of the beef retained that flavor well, even after three hours in the pot. It was also lean but not so lean as to be dry or chewy. The non-beef parts of the chili could have been a scoche thicker - a fork would not stand in this, quite - but it was thick enough to eat with a fork, no spoon needed. The balance of sweetness was exactly right, too. I think the molasses worked well for that. I didn't use my avacado honey - we have five or six honeys around the house, including most of a gallon left from our hives back when we kept bees, and the avacado is the darkest and strongest - but I'm glad I didn't for this batch, since I think if I'd added it as well, it might have been too sweet. I think I should have used the yellow onion as well. The onion flavor was too subtle. I would also maybe start with some beef stock, to add some more umami beefy richness to it. As served, the richness mostly came from the smoke, the paprika, and the "greenish" flavors of the chilies, and probably also the coffee and chicory, although that was subtle too. I would add another tablespoon or two of cumin, too, and I want to try toasting the cumin. I should not have been as cautious about the cinnamon. I couldn't really taste it, although it might have been there hidden in the spice combination, but I'd put in a larger stick and not worry about it next time. And, it needed more salt, but adding it at the table to taste was fine. In the end I'm pretty happy. I have a quart leftover in the fridge and another quart+ in the freezer. This is way better than anything out of a can, the "let's get some smoke in here" plan worked well, and I learned from what I did. One more note: beans. Chili can have beans, and we know this, because many chilis have beans. This is how words work: we define them through common usage, and those definitions change over time as common usage changes over time. Obviously it is better to be clear and say "chili with beans" so nobody will accidentally think your chili has no beans when it does have beans, but that's more just advertising/labeling advice, not a rule. This chili I made has no beans, but it's because beans do not agree with me - I love beans, and love chili with beans in it. I missed the beans. Just a little. I wish I could eat beans and not suffer dire consequences, but I can't. Thank you for reading this very long post and I hope you enjoyed it. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Oct 15, 2017 |
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Oct 15, 2017 07:03
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| # ? May 2, 2024 01:05 |
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why do americans call mince beef hamburger. its only a burger if you make a burger
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Oct 15, 2017 08:34
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If you call it ground beef it has to contain mostly beef. I would eat this whole pot and suffer the meats sweats gladly. Elephanthead fucked around with this message at 13:10 on Oct 15, 2017 |
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Oct 15, 2017 09:03
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I like the seat-of-pants chili making. Dish is pretty well suited for it, like gumbo. Usually how I end up cooking lots of stuff as well. Then it's really good and I want to remember how to recreate it, but I had a good buzz on and didn't write anything down!
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Oct 15, 2017 13:06
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Shameful lack of new England clam chowder 
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Oct 15, 2017 15:46
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DICK DICER posted:Shameful lack of new England clam chowder I live in the SF Bay Area, I've yet to make a chowder that is better than what they sell in a sourdough bread bowl over at Boudin. Jose posted:why do americans call mince beef hamburger. its only a burger if you make a burger In America, "mince" is a verb, not a noun. So at best we could call it "minced beef," except it's not minced, it's ground. Minced means finely chopped. So, it's often called "ground beef" and sometimes "hamburger." There is one exception to the "mince is a verb" and that's mincemeat pie, which has no meat in it. I don't know why.
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Oct 15, 2017 17:53
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Leperflesh posted:I live in the SF Bay Area, I've yet to make a chowder that is better than what they sell in a sourdough bread bowl over at Boudin. I was partial to Louie Linguini's, it's next door to the Monterey Bay aquarium
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Oct 15, 2017 19:09
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That was a great read, and inspirational.
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Oct 15, 2017 20:07
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DICK DICER posted:I was partial to Louie Linguini's, it's next door to the Monterey Bay aquarium Cannery Row has some good food but it's also real touristy, and I make it down to monterey bay maybe once every five years, whereas boudin has locations all over the bay area... but I will try to check that one out next time im down there, thanks. Ralith posted:That was a great read, and inspirational. Thank you! 
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Oct 15, 2017 20:46
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I hate chile but I would eat this and enjoy it very much.
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Oct 16, 2017 02:29
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That's a pretty good looking chili! I'm doing something similar for a contest next week, but I'm jealous of your smoking tech. How does the plum affect the flavor? I've used apple, cherry, oak, and mesquite, but never plum.
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Oct 16, 2017 06:05
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If there's a difference between the apple and the plum, I can't taste it. I suspect plum is uncommon just because plum trees don't grow such thick trunks. I should try a 100% plum long slow smoke some time, and then compare it against a 100% apple wood smoke of the exact same thing. e. A quick google suggests it's mild and sweet, which is what I get from the apple. I prune my plum tree annually and just don't want to waste the wood, basically. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Oct 17, 2017 |
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Oct 17, 2017 00:09
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| # ? May 2, 2024 01:05 |
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Those smoked meats look absolutely amazing, and I wish I could taste this chili. You did an amazing job!
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Oct 17, 2017 23:45
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