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Everyone knows that the best tasting food in the world is food made with care from the finest, freshest, and most local ingredients worth bragging about. Anyone who is really serious about cooking moves to live in a desolate rural wasteland so that they can get fresh, local produce from neighbors and nearby families at surprisingly low prices! In all seriousness, I realized halfway through making this chili that the vast majority of the fresh ingredients came from within a 30 mile radius of our home, simply because it’s very reasonable and sometimes even cheaper than grocery store prices to get produce at the farmer’s market and bulk meat from various farmers. Plus, we have a little garden in our backyard to supplement that with, and goddamn if those pretentious food shows aren’t right about how fresh, local stuff tastes way better. Without further adieu, the chili:  Pictured are most of the ingredients, except the ones I forgot. Poblano and Georgia flame peppers from our garden, dried guajillo and chipotle peppers, onions from the local Hutterite colony, garlic from my Fiancee’s parents’ garden, lamb shoulder from a farmer my mom knows about 30 miles East of here, most of the spices I included (forgot to show bay leaf, Worcestershire sauce, and a bit of stale black coffee), apple cider vinegar that I decided later on that I didn’t want in my chili and didn’t use, some local honey, and a nice porter from an in-state brewery. Also, a package of our homemade chorizo, which I am not allowed to let our house run out of. Made with meat from a Mangalitsa/Berkshire cross open pasture raised about seven miles north of here. Includes lots of smoked ancho chilis, some guajillos and chipotles, smoked paprika, apple cider vinegar, garlic, onions, dried epazote, etc. Not included: beans. Not because I have a firm belief either way about them, but because I didn’t want to bother with soaking them and all that and I know I won’t miss them. If you like beans, include them, if you don’t, don’t. You’re the one who’s going to to eat it, cook what you like.  I started by blistering the fresh chilis under the broiler, then covering them with plastic wrap so I could peel them.  I stemmed and seeded he dried peppers, and toasted them with some cumin seeds in a pan. The smell was quite potent.  The fresh chilis, stemmed, peeled, and seeded.  The dried chilis and cumin, ground into powder.  Plop that fantastic loving chorizo into a cold pan, and start cooking it.  I cooked the hell out of it to get all that good oil out and to get it nice and browned up. I want lots of that good browned meat flavor in my chili.  Next, I put the spare choirzo oil and a little additional oil (grapeseed) into the stockpot and started sweating down my onions and garlic.  Then, I put the bones from that lamb shoulder into the pot and nestled them down on the bottom so they could brown up a bit on the one side. I don’t have any pictures of breaking down the lamb, because gently caress juggling a phone while working with raw meat. In hindsight, it may have been better for me to roast the bones in the oven since I couldn’t get them as brown as I wanted without overcooking my garlic, but it’s too late now. I threw the peeled peppers in there too.  While that browned, I deglazed the chorizo pan with some of the porter and let it start reducing just a little bit.  Next I threw in my chili powder and a healthy dash of black pepper. Next but not pictured, I deglazed the pot with the rest of the can of porter and threw in a bay leaf. Not pictured, but the chorizo and beer from the other pan went in at this point as well.  Plus a dash of the worchestershire sauce I left out of the big ‘ol group photo. A good glob of honey found its way into the pot at this point too.  Then I threw in the rest of the lamb meat, but in roughly one inch cubes, and enough stock (half chicken half beef, sadly not homemade) to just cover the meat. Then, I just let it simmer.  In the meantime, we busted out the first little wheel of camembert that my fiancee made. It needed a week or two longer to age before it was a gooey as it could be, but it still tasted nice, so we and our guests ate it all anyway.  After two hours of simmering.  After four hours of simmering.  After five hours, It was looking good, and we’d all had a couple drinks. We baked off some purple potatoes our neighbor gave us from his garden, because we have a bunch that we need to eat while they’re still good. I don’t have a picture of the whole pot at this stage, but I do have some pictures of:   The chili plated up, with and without some plain ‘ol bag cheese. The lamb fell apart a bit more than it needed to while we were waiting for the potatoes to bake, but it still tasted good.  Fiancee approved. I’m still a keeper.  Our guests also approved. We have a little bit of leftovers too, guaranteed to give me fiery poops from at least one more meal. The heat level was right on the upper end of my threshold; I could still taste how flavorful it was, but I had to take pause every now and again to have a few drinks and let my mouth cool. Would definitely make chili again. Oldsrocket_27 fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Oct 13, 2017 |
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Oct 13, 2017 04:04
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I am always a big fan of using ICSA as a social occasion, nicely done.
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Oct 13, 2017 07:12
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I am super envious of all the local ingredients you got ahold of! Also seconding the congratulations on using this as an excuse for a social event. Great job!
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Oct 17, 2017 23:36
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