Posted on 01/31/2022 3:17:16 PM PST by mylife
gotta admit up front: The title of this article is somewhat misleading. Yes, we will discuss chili, and yes, it's the best chili I personally have ever made.
But! To call something "the best chili ever" implies that the recipe is perfect, and perfection implies that there is no room for improvement. I can only hope that others will continue perfecting the chili work that began on the Tex-Mex border, and that I continue testing, well after the last rich and spicy remnant is licked clean off the bottom of the bowl. With that disclaimer out of the way, let's move on to the testing.
My first step was to set up some parameters that would define the ultimate chili. Certainly, there are disputes in the chili world as to what makes the best. Ground beef or chunks? Are tomatoes allowed? Should we even mention beans? But I think we can all agree on a few things.
The ultimate chili should:
Have a rich, complex chile flavor that combines sweet, bitter, hot, fresh, and fruity elements in balance. Have a robust, meaty, beefy flavor. Assuming that it contains beans, have beans that are tender, creamy, and intact. Be bound together by a thick, deep-red sauce.
To achieve these goals, I decided to break down the chili into its distinct elements—the chiles, the beef, the beans, and the flavorings—perfecting each one before putting them all together in one big happy pot.
The Chiles: this important, as is the meat, i add beef chorizo as well
(Excerpt) Read more at seriouseats.com ...
You make your own chili powder from dried Ancho chilis.
Lately, I've been buying a chuck roast and grind it up myself at home.
-PJ
Traditional Chili had no beans or Tomatoes.
Exactly the way I like making it.
Stopped reading when I saw beans
My chili’s about 4 parts meat to 1 part bean, perhaps the reverse of what you’d find in the typical canned version.
chiles is key, I use 7 kinds
Oh boy. This is likely to get as rowdy as the “what’s the best conceal carry gun” threads!
Recently tried buying the ground chuck from HEB that is labeled for chilli. Hated it. Too many chucks of grizzle.
yessir...
Remember the reason for heavily spiced foods…
No refrigerator and the spices hid the fouled meat taste.
Curries as well.
By red beans do you mean kidney beans?
-PJ
By red beans do you mean kidney beans?
Don’t you know anything? They’re Chinese beans.
-PJ
Chinese beans?
Only pinto beans for me.
Beans and tomatoes have no place in chili.
Say what? I’ll take that challenge. My KC BBQ chili is the bomb diggity. Smoked Prime Brisket baby!
It was a joke. 😉
Everybody has their own version of chili.
I have been making chili for 60 years. The first 30 years I made it the usual way, with ground beef.
Then I tried a recipe I saw somewhere that used pork sausage and added a cup of strong black coffee to the pot.
It was an instant hit with my husband so now I don’t even have to make it anymore.
He has the recipe memorized.
My wife makes it with beans, I don’t.
Later, after eating hers I have to remind her of the consequences…..🙄
I prefer my chili to be beanless. If I put any extras in chili, it has to be lentils.
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