You'd drool if you knew how well Aunt Benita and I eat, and the quality of food we cook much of it using homegrown, fruits, nuts and veggies. Made a big pot of chili recently for instance, yummy! Added home grown hatch chiles, tomatoes, onion, garlic....nothing like garden fresh veggies. Tell ya what, since there's so much noise here, I'll republish my basic recipe for chili. It's quite rich, and expensive.
You'd do well to print this out.
Chili con carne Tweaks
Here's my tweaks, volume of ingredients is based on about 3 - 5 lbs. of ground or hand cut beef. You can use 50/50 pork/beef too, or add wild game like deer or blackjack antelope. The choice of the pot size, amount of diced tomatoes or tomato sauce, amount of onion, veggies (celery, bell pepper), etc. is standard fare.
These tweaks will make your chili con carne quite complex. It's just a matter of shopping for the ingredients if you don't already have them.
1. Salt - Substitute Cavender's Greek Seasoning and powdered beef and/or tomato bullion for ALL salt. Use more bullion (Knorr's brand) than Cavender's, about 3 tablespoons total, to taste.
2. Pepper - Use freshly coarse ground BLACK pepper instead of powdered canned pepper to taste. (A practice you should do for all your cooking or salads anyway IMO.)
3. Use comino (whole SEED), not powdered cumin...alot of it, like 2 TBSP.
4. Peppers - Use dried pasilla, ancho, cascabel and New Mexico, mostly ancho which is what chili powder is made from and where you get the red color. I'm heavy on the New Mexico and ancho peppers. All of those should be available in your store. Look for dried peppers that are rather fresh regarding oil content, not dried and brittle which suggests they are old. Kick it up a notch with japanese or jalapeno chilis according to taste, not required as it will already have a bite to it. Depends on how much afterburn you want.
5. I use a colander to drain off most of the fat from the browned meat, about 30 seconds sitting in the colander. This will save you time trying to skim off the fat from the final brew, plus it's alot more efficient and healthier.
6. Saute chopped onion, celery, bell pepper in butter or olive oil to add to your browned/drained meat. Saute until the chopped onions just become transparent but are still crisp.
For ease of preparation in preparing the seasonings, I use a blender, an Oster brand. Make your seasoning broth:
1. 1-2 pints water and can of diced tomatoes (or homegrown).
2. About 5 or 6 of the dried peppers (beats chili powder hands down), stem removed and seeds shaken out.
3. About 8 cloves of garlic, skinned and stem end cut out.
4. "Popular" brand Mexican chocolate, bar type. This will add a touch of sweetness, richness, and cinnamon flavor, all in a "background" very suttle kinda way.
5. Two tablespoons of dried oregano.
6. 1/2 cup of Worcestershire sauce.
Blend on high until creamy, add enough (or all) to season the entire batch to taste. Should be red and pungent.
7. I use canned beans - black (rinse), red kidney, and/or pintos. Dried are too unpredictable regarding when done and too time consuming for me.
8. After simmering for a while, thicken up the pot with a 50/50 mix of Masa Harina and white flour made into a thick slurry with a bit of cold water stirred in. Stir pot as you add slowly until you get your desired consistency. Simmer another 10 minutes and serve.
enjoy.........
Uncle Ben
