John's Chili
Source of Recipe
the web
List of Ingredients
1 cup dry pinto beans (substitutions: black or kidney beans) (in extremis use canned beans)
2-3 pounds rump roast or chuck roast (substitutions: hamburger or ground chuck)
salt and pepper
olive oil
1 Tbsp whole cumin seeds
1 medium or large onion, chopped
4-8 cloves garlic, chopped
a handful (or more) fresh chili peppers, chopped and optionally peeled (see below)
1-2 large (28 oz.) cans whole stewed tomatoes (substitutions: tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, or ideally an equivalent quantity of fresh tomatoes, blanched, peeled, and seeded)
a bottle of beer -- porter or brown ale is perfect
2-3 roasted sweet red peppers (see below)
1/2 tsp dried oregano
3-6 Tbsp (or more) dried chili peppers; chopped, crushed, or powdered (see below) (substitution: grocery store chili powder)
1/2 ounce or so bittersweet chocolate (substitution: 1 tsp sugar)
2 Tbsp vinegar
Recipe
About four hours before serving time, wash and pick over the beans, cover them with water, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer until the beans are needed.
Remove anything white from the rump roast. Cut the meat into thin strips (think fajitas) or 1/2 inch cubes. Season liberally with salt and pepper. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a frying pan and brown the meat over fairly high heat, working in small batches. Put the cooked meat into a heavy pot: a nice cast iron dutch oven is perfect. If the meat seems to have turned into little pieces of leather, don't worry about it: that's supposed to happen. After cooking for a few hours it'll melt in your mouth.
Next:
Heat a few more tablespoons of oil in the frying pan
Add the cumin seeds and let them sizzle for a few seconds -- but be careful not to burn them
Add the dried chili peppers and let them sizzle for a little longer
Add the chopped onion and garlic and saute for a few minutes
Add the fresh chili peppers
Saute a few more minutes, until the onions are a bit soft
Put the onion / garlic / pepper mixture into the pot with the meat
Deglaze the frying pan with part of the beer; add this and the rest of the beer to the pot
Briefly chop in a blender at minimum speed:
The tomatoes
The roasted red peppers
The goal here is to break the ingredients into small pieces -- don't puree them. Alternatively, for chunkier chili, chop the tomatoes and peppers by hand. Add the tomato mixture to the pot.
Drain the beans and add them to the pot. Throw in the remaining seasonings (but not the vinegar).
Leave the chili on medium heat until it starts to boil, and then simmer covered for about 3 hours. Stir often until you find the lowest burner setting that keeps it bubbling, and infrequently after that. A better alternative, if you have a pot that can handle it, is to put the chili in the oven at 300 or 325 degrees; then you can just forget about it for a few hours. The chili is done when beans are at the right texture and the meat is very tender or starting to fall apart. If the chili is too thin, throw in a handful of crushed corn chips or some corn flour. Before serving: skim off any grease that has surfaced (there shouldn't be any if you did everything right), adjust spicing, and add a tablespoon or two of vinegar -- the tartness helps bring out the flavor of the chilis.
Serve with grated cheddar, chopped onions, sour cream, oyster crackers, and tortillas or cornbread.
Suggested variations:
Leave out the beans.
Reduce the amount of tomatoes by at least 50%. Compensate by increasing the amount of roasted, fresh, and dried chilis. A pepper-based chili is potentially superior to a tomato-based chili, but it's a bit harder to get right.
Avoid any ingredient that's mechanically crushed, smashed, or pureed -- chop everything coarsely, by hand.
Use ground chuck or hamburger instead of a chuck roast.
Use a combination of cubed and ground meat -- this works very well.
Use a combination of ground beef and ground pork -- a lot of chili recipes call for this.
Use that imitation ground beef that's made from TVP or something similar. They sell this at places like Whole Foods and Wild Oats; it works surprisingly well in chili.
Roast and peel all of the chili peppers instead of just the sweet red peppers. Actually, don't do this for the small, delicate peppers, it's not worth the effort.
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