ottawa foodies

I believe Chili is a very personal dish, and should be custom made to the individual tastes, but new ideas, secrets and tried and true should be put forth for everyone to play with!

Now, assuming people are making soup pot size.....

- I always put a cup of strong coffee in my chili. It works, gives it a rich flavour, and you won't taste the coffee directly (trust me)

- I don't use ground beef, I buy cheap whole meats (find the sales, and not lean beef) and slice them to about 1cm cubed squares and brown them on high heat for a while

- I use beer to deglaze the pot after browning. I have been known to use whisky or rum for the same purpose (go very light if you use spirits!)

- I add ground pork to go with the beef when I have it

- A spoon full or two of cumin and fennel seeds do wonders on top of the chili powder

- Lots of corn!


Caurious if anyone does anything unique with chili that I should try?

I second the fennel: dry-roasted goodness. Rounds it out quite well.

A bit of cinnamon plays a part in almost any chili I make: works well with the tomatoes and beef.

And a tiny bit of shaved bitter (70% or so) chocolate. It's imperative to be delicate with your hand on this. Like when you add coffee, you don't want your chili to taste like chocolate. You want it to taste like MYSTERY.

This is my all-time favorite chili recipe - in my opinion it is the most well-rounded and flavourful chili around (note: it calls for sausage, but I always leave it out to cut the fat, and just add a few additional kinds of beans, such as black beans and pinto beans, instead).

allrecipes.com

Going a little off the page here, are there any ex-Nortel employees around that remember the vegetarian chili served at the lab 3 cafeteria? I still think about it and would love to approximate it in recipe form.

Momomoto: Cinnamon would be a new one for me. Do you think it should be added to a bowl and stirred in to sample or does it need to be cooked in?

And yes, bitter chocolate, wonderful idea!

FOOD is HOT!: That is a great recipe and I have used ideas from it before, even up to a couple years ago now. I think that recipe is making the rounds on the internet. I have passed the link on before to friends too. I think that is where I first got the coffee idea.

Peter: when I add cinnamon I add it with the tomatoes, just before reducing it down to its proper consistency. Does it need to be cooked in like that? Probably not. You could always add a little bit (say, a teaspoon per kilo of meat) and then taste as you go.

I use san marzano style tomatoes in my chili, it has a better flavour due to the lower acidity (typically), and also the san marzano tomatoes seem less moist, making a richer, less thinned out, less tinny taste. I stopped using beer in my chili since it didn't really add to the taste after prolonged simmering, but found that using a small amount of worcestershire or dark smoky BBQ sauce helps kick up the flavour considerably. Also, pan frying the chili & other dry spices helps a LOT... along with maybe an ancho chili or two ;) I'll try and devise a recipe, I'm so used to making my chili without a recipe, it just comes naturally.

Just had a party (and music jam session) at my house two weekends ago. About 35 peeps, and I had a big pot'o'chilli on the super low burner of my Thermador (see postings under 'cooktops' thread).

They ALL loved it.

Here are some, just some, of the ingredients....

Reconstitued dried chillis... Ancho (which is dried Poblano), Pasilla and Chipotle (which is dried and smoked jalapeno, for heat and smokeyness). NO 'Chilli powder' here !!!

Dried Pinto, Red Kidney and Black(turtle) beans, soaked over night and simmered seperately and slowly before adding to the pot

Oregano from Nicaragua, not Greek or mediteranian which is somewhat different.

Cocoa powder (both Van Houten and Fryes) (I'll will try some coffee next time)

Mexican chocolate, just a little, takes down the acidity of the tomatoes.I agree with Momomoto, gotta keep this low in the background .... and the deep richness will come through. Will have them saying "I don't know what's in there, but ooooh the flavour !!'.


Corn (ok ok frozen kernals this time ... but if I could-a got some cobs....)

Finely diced (slightly larger than the corn niblets) green pepper and carrot

Cumin, whole and ground, pan toasted (like Chimichimi's method) and non toasted as well

Quality tinned tomates from Italy, and coarse diced fresh tomatoes added near the end to 'freshen it up'


Some of my techniques...

Put carrots in with the frying onions (to take the edge off them). Dry chilli's roasted over the burners open flame before reconstituting them, (again, similar to Chimichimi method), deglazed pan (a la Peter's suggestion), slow and low cooking, freshing up at the end etc.

Served with the following toppings: Cheese, shredded lettuce, quality organic corn chips, sliced pickled jalapeno peppers, Mugena's(sp) hot sauce (from Ritchmond Rd.) for those who want to 'kick it up a notch'. sour cream, etc.


Mmmmmm.

When I reheated some leftovers for lunch, my co-workers went nuts..

We have an annual chili cookoff at work in late November, and while I'd like to report that I won this year, I did not :-( But I'm always on the search for a better chili and there's always next year!

I use chunked meat (a number of people at the cookoff said very clearly "it's not chili if it has ground") that's been smoked on my smoker. This time around I didn't smoke in advance so I used some drippings from smoked stuff that I'd saved in the freezer, and 3 smoked quails. THen stewing beef (from a local farmer of course) cut into 1cm cubes. Tomatoes, mushrooms, carrots, corn, and kidney beans. Chili powder (not the hot stuff) and then some hot chili powder.

I've also done batches with roasted red peppers.

I think I'm going to do some experimenting over the next year with some of the tips above, so see if I can't win that sucker next year!

This topic is so a propos: my significant other (who loves chili more than I thought humanly possible) and I were just discussing having a party with our friends, making a few different chilis and comparing the different chilis to determine what tastes best.

Maybe we can do a chocolate chili, a cinnamon and chocolate chili and a veggie chili.

(We're in the process of moving at the moment so the party won't be anytime soon, but when it does happen, I will report back with my findings of how different mystery ingredients in chili stack up in a group of blind testers.)

Alanna - you should also include a white chili - just for a little more variation fun!

Thanks FiH - I hadn't even thought of a white chili, but now that you mention it, I have a recipe for it in one of my favourite cookbooks (unless, of course, you have some wonderful suggestions.)

I'm still new-ish to making chili, so I have yet to be super adventurous and generally stick to recipes, more or less. I guess the best thing about chili is how much you can improvise with it and change it up everytime - I am getting some brilliant ideas from this thread. :)

I've have never made white chili myself. The first few googled recipes all look pretty much the same... different cheeses or something :-)


Any do's or don'ts or other good tips for a first timer on the white chili?

What's White Chili?

Chicken instead of the traditional beef.

The two or three white chili recipes I bumped into when googling also used white beans, and no tomatos.

I made a vegan chili tonight with: cubanelle, red and jalapeno peppers, golden hominy, red mexican beans, black beans, onions, garlic, chili powder blend, ancho chili, smoked paprika, adobo seasoning, dark ale, semisweet chocolate, tomato paste and tinned san marzano tomatoes. The hominy added a good, earthy, corn flavour to the chili, much different than sweet corn, a very welcome addition. Normally I don't like using beer in my chili, but I went against tradition and used some Wellington Dark Ale... it just reinforced that I could have used vegetable stock instead of wasting beer on a chili. It's meant for drinking while I eat it!!! Overall, a very good chili, even if it was vegan!

I'm making a big batch of chili right now and using some ideas from above - will see what I come up with!

I recently used Port to deglaze the pot... worked very, very well.

Here's what I came up with. All-in-all turned out well - probably one of my better chilis. Had a big feed of it just now, and got about 8 jars that I'm going to process a bit later in the pressure canner.

- 1300g local organic ground beef (no stewing beef left)
- 5 cups chopped carrots
- 5 cups chopped onion
- 6 tablespoons chili powder
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp cayenne
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/3 tsp ginger
- 1 cup strong coffee
- 2 cups dried kidney beans
- 2 cups beef broth
- 3 cups frozen corn
- 5 squares PC organic 70% chocolate
- 1500 ml home-canned tomato sauce (just a bit of salt and basil)
- 1 portobello mushroom
- 3-4 tablespoons honey
- some olive oil

For the broth I salvaged the bone and scraps from a huge steak for lunch, and boiled them 15 minutes in 2 cups water.

I fried the onions in the oil, and once they were really done well I turned the heat way down and tossed the 3 x frozen chunks of beef into the pot and put the lid on for a half hour. Meanwhile I mixed the beef broth, coffee and beans in a pot and added enough water to cover with an inch. Boiled for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile the beef was thawed so I chunked it and fried the beef and onions for 10 minutes. Then everything just went into the pop and cooked maybe 2 hours on low, stirring every 30 minutes.

As mentioned, I'm very pleased with this and have some great ideas for further experimentation

EDIT : note to self : I forgot to put in some capers and olives, which I was going to experiment with!

That sounds unique, let us know how capers and olives work out when you get around to that ;-)

I made deer chili last weekend, turned out really well. I have more venison in my freezer than I know what to do with right now, some hunters have been kind to me.

What a great topic - we just had chili for the Superbowl. Hubby took what he thought were steaks out of the freezer, turns out it was trimmings from one of those whole beef tenderloins we buy to make into steaks! Made for a nice chili, I must say!

I like to use ground ground turkey and black beans in my chili. I usually put in about 1/2 a cup of smokey bbq sauce too. I will have to try adding some dark chocolate next time - that's a brilliant idea. The dark ale in Chimichimi's recipe also sounds like a great addition. Mmm chili!

I'm making another batch right now of my above recipe. Only differences are :

- only 2/3 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp ginger
- one half the beef was smoked earlier this year on my smoker, then frozen
- just over 2 cups corn (off the cob, thus my other thread today :-))
- used 1 chunk of baker's unsweetened chocolate (half of the 2 chunks that are attached)
- the beef broth I used for pre-cooking the kidney beans was a can of broth I'd canned up previously, from one of our beef orders

Smelling pretty darned good so far!

Ohmygosh, how could I forget! Another important addition to today's batch was roasted red peppers. When I was at the market one of the vendors had a basket of about 8 huge red and yellow peppers on for $1 since they were getting soft in places. Got them back here, cut out the very few soft spots, cored them, and roasted them til the were good and black. Peeled the skin and into the chili they went!

EDIT : oh yeah, and a good half to 3/4 cup of garlic scape goop, made from buzzing garlic scapes and olive oil in the mini-chopper.

Hey Zy. So how did the chili turn out ? Is the 'recipe' ready for this Novermbers Chili Cookoff ?

Yes, very good! A little more smoke and I think I'm a contender this year!

For smokeyness (and heat) I use a chipotle pepper (which is a dried and smoked jalapeno pepper). The chipotle is first roasted over a gas burner before reconstituting it in hot water. Then it is deseeded (but not deveined) and pureed.

I find it adds another depth of character to the already complex chili flavoroids.

Good luck on your entry and please let us know how you make out.

For smokiness I use my smoker :-) put the meat on there before turning it into chili :-)

p.s. I've got jars of my own home made liquid smoke now, too. When I finish my meat in a pot in the oven I save the runnings and can them up. I'll probably use a jar of that next time around.

I just made another batch. This time was for the upcoming annual chili cookoff at work, so I didn't want to waste my good home-canned ingredients nor my good meat :-) So I bought a 1.5kg sirloin top roast at Loeb (more on that in another thread) and cut it up into chunks.

- 1500 g chunked sirloin tip
- 1600 ml diced tomatoes
- 5 cups chopped carrots
- 4 cups chopped onion
- 6 tablespoons chili powder
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp hot indian chili powder (orange stuff)
- 1/2 tsp cayenne
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/3 tsp ginger
- 1 cup strong coffee
- 2 cups dried kidney beans
- 2 cups liquid smoke (see below)
- 1 can corn kernels
- 1 chunk unsweetened chocolate
- 2 cans whole mushrooms, halved
- 3-4 tablespoons honey
- some canola oil

The liquid smoke is my home made concoction. When smoking meat in the summer it typically has to finish cooking either on the grill, or in the oven. When it's the latter I put it into a big pot and bake covered for 60 to 90 minutes. This often leaves behind a good amount of liquid which is almost jet black from smoke. So I can it up!

I fried the onions in my pot in some oil, then added the chunked beef and cooked it well. Meanwhile in a smaller pot I put the kidney beans in and then the liquid smoke. I brought to the boil, reduced heat to 1, covered, and left for 25 minutes. At the end of this the beans are still pretty stiff and need a good deal of cooking, but no worries as we shall see.

I put everything into the pot and brought to the boil, then boiled 5 or 10 minutes on a low boil. Then into mason jars (6 x 1 litre) and I canned it all up at 15 PSI for 27 minutes. This will finish cooking both the beans and the carrots.

I'll try some for lunch today and report back how good it is. I'd really like to win that competition this year! One thing I know from trying the sauce is that the liquid smoke does not bring through as much smokiness as I thought it would.

EDIT : tastes very good! Wife says it could use a good dose of cilantro to improve it, so I might do that in the slow cooker at work when I open the rest of the mason jars for the competition.

I would assume commercial brand liquid smoke is much more pungent than your home-made type..?

Yes, a friend told me when I posted the above on facebook that he nearly freaked when he saw the amount of liquid smoke I used, until he realised it was my own. I have no idea how much of the commercial stuff to use - but significantly less!

yeah, usually a few drops of commercial liquid smoke is enough for any dish. For a massive pot of chili like this, I could see using something like a teaspoon of it. Much more than that and the whole mess would taste like an ashtray! :O

Soooo, did ya win?

Competition is not til next week (or the week after - will have to double check)

Zym - I'd be guessing it will be next week... as the Grey Cup is Sunday, November 23rd... thinking people are going to be asking for the recipe to your soon to be WORLD FAMOUS CHILI.

Wish me luck - today is the big day!

Zym - Good Luck buddy... let us know how it turns out.

Will know in about an hour. There is some good competition though!

First and second place were tight this year, with a gap to 3rd where 2 were tied.

I got 2nd place which is my best standing ever in 6 years! So I'm going to work with this recipe some more.

Zym - CONGRATULATIONS!

Some notes to self :
- not in the above recipe is the 3/4 bottle of cilantro that my wife recommended (she recommended cilantro, I came up with the amount in 5 litres)
- one comment that I had a bit too much cinnamon, which I agree with
- in addition to that I think it could use a bit more ginger
- definitely could use more smoke

Seeing Happy Mouth Blog talk about chili in a recent forum topic reminded me that we had a thread going on this way back when.

I'll be the first to admit that, deep down, I am a BORING chili maker. It's totally by the book, and by "book" I mean "can":

- Brown some ground beef, add some chili powder, set aside for later.
- Sautee some onions, add some chili powder, cook until fragrant.
- Add a couple cans of tomatoes, add some chopped garlic, maybe add some dried hot pepper flakes, add the meat back, cook until it's the consistency you like.
- Add a couple cans of kidney beans, heat through, serve.

But I made chili a couple days ago and was pleased with my embellishments.

First off, I browned the ground beef and sauteed the onions in bacon fat. You don't need much, but it does add that, I dunno, wholesome character to the dish.

Then, rather than using hot pepper flakes, I decided to give my spicing the old one-two.

I poured in some chipotle salsa and an inordinately large number of red and green piri piri (i.e. dried birds-eye) chilies. Maybe it was a small handful. Maybe it was too many.

It hurts, but it hurts so good. We'll probably just eat it on top of rice, but I do have a couple of Kennebec potatoes kicking around that would make a great base for chili fries...

Here are someof the ingredients and techniques I use.

Reconstitued dried chillis... Ancho (which is dried Poblano), Pasilla and Chipotle (which is dried and smoked jalapeno, for heat and smokeyness). NO 'Chilli powder' here !!!

Dried Pinto, Red Kidney and Black(turtle) beans, soaked over night and simmered seperately and slowly before adding to the pot

Oregano from Nicaragua, not Greek or mediteranian which is somewhat different.

Cocoa powder (both Van Houten and Fryes) (I'll will try some coffee next time)

Mexican chocolate, just a little, takes down the acidity of the tomatoes.I agree with Momomoto, gotta keep this low in the background .... and the deep richness will come through. Will have them saying "I don't know what's in there, but ooooh the flavour !!'.

Corn (ok ok frozen kernals this time ... but if I could-a got some cobs....)

Finely diced (slightly larger than the corn niblets) green pepper and carrot

Cumin, whole and ground, pan toasted (like Chimichimi's method) and non toasted as well

Quality tinned tomates from Italy, and coarse diced fresh tomatoes added near the end to 'freshen it up'

Some of my techniques...

Put carrots in with the frying onions (to take the edge off them). Dry chilli's roasted over the burners open flame before reconstituting them, (again, similar to Chimichimi method), deglazed pan (a la Peter's suggestion), slow and low cooking, freshing up at the end etc.

Served with the following toppings: Cheese, shredded lettuce, quality organic corn chips, sliced pickled jalapeno peppers, Mugena's(sp) hot sauce (from Ritchmond Rd.) for those who want to 'kick it up a notch'. sour cream, etc.

Does anyone else here use masa (corn) flour to thicken their chili? I do, and it adds an awesome flavour. Try it! You can find this flour at most Loblaws now in their ethnic food aisle.

This vegetarian recipe is very good, and it's really simple:

I add tex-mex veggie ground round, about half a block of cream cheese and I triple the chili poweder (because I like it hot).

allrecipes.com

Good chili making tips (and food science too) here:

www.seriouseats.com