Looking for a killer chili recipe

[Innocent Bystander]

Vegetable Chili


4 tsp oil
2 large onions, chopped fairly finely
2-3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 packet (454g) Realeat Vegemince (Tesco’s sell this in the frozen food cabinet, also Holland and Barrett)
1 jar Lloyd Grossman Tomato and Chilli Pasta Sauce 1 can chopped tomatoes (400g)
1 can kidney beans (410g)
1-2 tbsp tomato puree
2-3 tbsp dried oregano
¼ - ½ tsp cayenne pepper (to taste, depending on age of cayenne pepper)
salt & pepper


Heat the oil gently and saute the onions and garlic. When soft stir in the vegemince. Add chilli pasta sauce, chopped tomatoes and about 1 can full of water. Stir and simmer for 10 minutes. Add kidney beans, drained and rinsed, and tomato puree, cayenne pepper, oregano, salt and pepper. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Serves 4

(You can also make this with Quorn mince or Linda McCartney mince, but we prefer the vegemince). Eat with brown rice and Doritos!

[chas]

1 lb pinto beans
salt and water

1 large yellow onion
1-4 cloves garlic
1 large bell pepper
a mixture of peppers like wax, anaheim, tomato

2 15-oz cans diced tomatoes

a few tbsp chili powder
chile peppers to taste
1-2 tsp cumin
1-2 bay leaves
a few tsp oregano
2 cubes veggie bouillon

Soak the beans overnight, drain, bring to a boil, and drain again. Cover them and cook for 2 hours or so with some salt.

When the beans are half an hour or so from done, put a little oil in a good-sized pan and add coarsely chopped onion. When the onions have wilted, add the garlic, and the peppers a few minutes later. Add chiles to taste -- I really prefer habaneros, but many prefer serranos or jalapenos. (You can vary the ration of flavor to heat by adding more or less of the ribs and seeds.) Add the spices, mix a little, then add the tomatoes, herbs, and bouillon.

Mix it all together and cook another half hour or so.

I usually serve this with a meat-only chili, rice, and corn chips.

You can substitute other kinds of beans; I add more cumin and some thyme for black beans; more garlic, no cumin for red beans, etc.

[Flyingcursor]

No matter how good the Chili, without corn bread (no sugar) it's like eating butter without bread. Like breakfast without orange juice. Like a car without wheels.

Herbivore, why non-alcoholic beer? The alcohol will cook out and real beer has a better flavor.

My secret ingredient is coffee. About 1/2 cup. Yes coffee. Not Sanka, not Chickory. Coffee. Real columbian coffee. That's right. Coffee.

[herbivore12]

Herbivore, why non-alcoholic beer? The alcohol will cook out and real beer has a better flavor.

My secret ingredient is coffee. About 1/2 cup. Yes coffee. Not Sanka, not Chickory. Coffee. Real columbian coffee. That's right. Coffee.

You'll see in my post that I mention that I use real beer. It's just the recipe that called for non-alcoholic. No idea why anyone would do that. (Red wine is pretty good in chili, too. Even a bit of port.) I just use recipes as general guides, usually, and adjust portions and/or ingredients to my taste, or to what I have on hand.

[gonzo914]

No matter how good the Chili, without corn bread (no sugar) it's like eating butter without bread. Like breakfast without orange juice. Like a car without wheels.

No, no, no -- fresh out of the oven french bread. Slather on some butter and dunk it. Freshly baked white bread will do if that's all you've got. Cornbread is for beans.

[Lambchop]

My secret ingredient is coffee. About 1/2 cup. Yes coffee. Not Sanka, not Chickory. Coffee. Real columbian coffee. That's right. Coffee.

I hope that you are not implying that "coffee with" is insipid, ersatz, sickroom pap!

"Chickory coffee" is dark-roasted coffee flavored with roast chickory root. It produces a thickly foaming, utterly sublime beverage which indelibly stains porcelain mugs and strikes fear into the souls of even strong men.

Mine will launch you straight out of your socks, young man.

And it's not bitter. So there!

[Flyingcursor]

My secret ingredient is coffee. About 1/2 cup. Yes coffee. Not Sanka, not Chickory. Coffee. Real columbian coffee. That's right. Coffee.

I hope that you are not implying that "coffee with" is insipid, ersatz, sickroom pap!

"Chickory coffee" is dark-roasted coffee flavored with roast chickory root. It produces a thickly foaming, utterly sublime beverage which indelibly stains porcelain mugs and strikes fear into the souls of even strong men.

Mine will launch you straight out of your socks, young man.

And it's not bitter. So there!

I stand chastised.

Cornbread is for beans

Then I'm a bean because I just love corn bread. Although the idea of French sounds pretty good too. I use that for my famous beef soup.

[I.D.10-t]

Do people honestly follow a recipe for making chili?

[Redwolf]

Do people honestly follow a recipe for making chili?

In my case, they do when they're trying to arrive at a very specific kind of chili, with a particular flavor. My ultimate goal is to arrive at something like what you might find in a roadside diner in the Northwest with the word "EAT" on the top.

Redwolf

[fel bautista]

Fel's Chilli
Its by feel/taste so here goes- kinda like learning a tune by ear. This should make 4 to 5 reasonably good servings. I doubled the receipe for a chili cook off at work and the stuff disappeared quickly-

I like to use a large pot- my tall 16 inch pasta pot works really well- that way nothing splatters out and your SO doesn't complain about the mess.

5 lbs of chuck steak, cut into 1/2 cubes
6 to 7 inches of beef or pork chorizo sausage-you pick
a couple of onions (diced)
a couple of garlic cloves (smashed and chopped)
3 to four jalapeno peppers deseeded, and all but one remove the veins-be careful and use gloves and avoid touching eyes and other sensitive organs
cumin
black pepper
vietnamese red pepper sauce
a couple of cans of beef broth or beer-I like Guinness, really- it imparts a nice color and flavor
red chili powder
3 to 4 ancho chilis- soaked with seeds and skin removed
salt
Masa- mexican yellow corn meal used for tortillas
You can add a can of red kidney beans, but I like to have them seperately-see next reciepe


brown the onions and garlic
add the meat/chorizo and continue to brown until nicely caramalized
Add spices to taste-I like the chili powder and cumin in reasonably large quantities. I like the red pepper sauce-it adds a different note to spices.
Add the anchos- stir to incorporate spices and break the chillis down
Add enough liquid to cover mixture and simmer until tender.

Almost at the end of the cooking period- the longer the better to tenederize the chuck steak- check the liquid; if it looks too dry, add some more liquid. The cooking time is somewhere around two to three hours. The anchos may stick to the pot so you want to stir every so often.

add two or three tablespoons of masa to thicken when the meat is tender. If you've done it right, there should be liquid in the pot. The masa should thicken the sauce but not make it a globby, sticky kind of thing.

You should be tasting the the chili throughout-salt as needed.


Beans-
1 can of mashed up refried beans
1 can of whole pinto beans
1 jalapeno per person eating- seeded and deveined- see above
6 to 7 inches of beef or pork chorizo sausage
1/4 inch of salt pork diced
1 onion
garlic-smashed and chopped
queso- soft mexican farmers style cheese

brown the salt pork until the fat is rendedred,
add the onion, japalenos and garlic and cook until translucent
add the sausage and sautee until the sausage has broken up
Add the two cans of beans, incude the bean liquid as well
Stir and check for consistancy- I'll add a beer so that the mixture can cook down without sticking to the pan.- so add enough to cook for an hour or so- the flavors need to meld.
Once cooked, take it off the heat and incorporate a handful of cheese. The cheese is salty so taste and add salt if needed. This reciepe is from an engineer that I worked with. Her dad would make buckets of this for New Year's day football. So, I've always refered to it as Connie's chili.

[RonKiley]

Here is my simple recipe. I probably use more cumin and less chili pwder since I don't measure but adjust to the flavor I like.

1 cup TVP
1 medium onion chopped
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 can tomatoes diced
2 cans kidney beans
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 can tomato sauce
1 dash hot pepper sauce (use your size dash)

Brown onions in the olive oil and add the garlic. Add the tomatoes, the tomato sauce, and the kidney beans including all liquid. Stir to mix thoroughly. Add chili powder and cumin. Add TVP and simmer for at least 1 hour. Adjust seasoning to taste. This can be frozen and reheated.

Ron

[chas]

What's TVP?

[herbivore12]

What's TVP?

Textured Vegetable Protein. A sort of meat analog.

Hey, Fel, you wrote that your recipe makes "four or five" servings, but it contains:

5 lbs of chuck steak, cut into 1/2 cubes
6 to 7 inches of beef or pork chorizo sausage-you pick

before you even get to any veggies or broth or anything! What kind of bowls are you serving this stuff in? That sounds like a whole festival's-worth of chili from the meat alone!

[fel bautista]

Well ok, maybe I'm a bit overly optimistic on serving size. Maybe not- we had five in our family at one time and that stuff would get eaten up really quickly.

The chorizo breaks up really quicky into the liquid-it adds color and taste, and I suspect some other stuff that my doctor has warned me about.

As they say, your serving size may vary