My Dad used to make this for amateur chili cook-offs. I’ve made a few changes to the recipe, as well as scaling it down from the very large cook-off-sized batch my Dad’s original made.
If you’re making it at home, the best thing is to cook it a day ahead of time, refrigerate overnight, then reheat and serve. Like a lot of stews, the refrigeration improves the texture (it has something to do with the chemistry of the gelatin that stewing extracts from the beef, or so the culinary guru Alton Brown explained in an episode of Good Eats).
Ingredients
- 1 lb cubed or ground beef (I like cubed for this; if you go with ground, get a coarse “chili grind.”)
- 5 dried chili peppers, at least 3 of them Anchos.
- Anchos have a good flavor but relatively mild heat. For a mild chili, use all anchos. To increase the heat, use hotter peppers after the 3 anchos. If you don’t know your way around peppers, use caution and experiment until you find the combination you like.
- 1/4 cup chopped onion
- 1 clove garlic, finely diced
- Ground suet or other cooking fat
- Suet is beef fat. You won’t find it displayed on the grocery store shelves, but the guy behind the butcher counter can usually get it for you. You can also use bacon grease, or lard (don’t be scared by the word “lard”) but the beef fat is best. If you insist, you could actually use vegetable shortening. Just be sure to use a cooking fat that is solid at room temperature (so not vegetable oil) for reasons revealed below.
- 1 heaping tablespoon ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 10 oz can Rotel
- pinch of oregano
- Masa harina (corn flour)
- Water
- Have either beef broth or beer standing by, you might or might not need them.
Directions
- Remove the stems and seeds from the dried peppers, then put in a saucepan and add just enough water to cover. Boil for 30 minutes.
- At this point my Dad’s recipe called for peeling the peppers by hand, then discarding the peel and chopping the flesh. It’s a very labor-intensive step that’s meant to leave you with big chunks of pepper in the final chili. However, I’ve found that the peppers break down into broth anyway, so I take the quicker route of pureeing the peppers, peel and all. If you have an immersion or stick blender you can do this right in the saucepan. If not, pour the peppers and water into a blender and puree them that way. (But let them cool a bit first— don’t turn on the blender while the mixture is still boiling hot!) After pureeing, push the thick mixture through a strainer to get rid of any remaining seeds or large pieces of peel.
- If you decide to go the hand-peeling route:
- Wear gloves while you do it— the capsaicin in the peppers will bind to skin and even after washing your hands, you can give yourself a nasty surprise when you rub your eyes hours later.
- Save both the chili chunks and the water you boiled them in.
- If you decide to go the hand-peeling route:
- In a large frying pan, melt 2-3 tablespoons of whatever cooking fat you chose (enough to thoroughly coat the bottom of the pan)
- Add the onion and garlic and sautee until softened.
- Add the cubed or ground beef and sautee until brown
- Transfer the beef/onion/garlic along with as much of the cooking fat as possible into a stewpot or slow cooker (I like the slow cooker best for this recipe).
- Add the chili puree (or the chili chunks + water if you went that way). If there’s not enough liquid to cover the beef, add either beef broth or beer until you have enough liquid to cover the beef by around 1/2 inch. (Experiment to see which extra liquid you like best.)
- You can just add extra water to bring up the liquid level, but it’s better to use the opportunity to add more flavor.
- Simmer for 1 hour
- Stir in the cumin, oregano, salt and Rotel
- Simmer for 1 more hour
- Sprinkle and stir in the Masa Harina gradually. You’re using it to thicken the broth, but it also tends to dampen the flavor, so use as little as possible to get a good thickness.
- Simmer for 1 more hour
- Taste and add more seasoning if needed. If you’d like to increase the heat, add cayenne pepper sparingly until you have a spiciness you like.
If you’re going to eat the chili right away, you’ll need to skim off the grease which has risen to the top. If you are cooking a day ahead of time, then refrigerate and, the next day, all the grease will have solidified and you can just lift it right out (don’t throw it away: rinse it off and refrigerate in an airtight container. Next time you plan to sautee something that could benefit from some chili flavor, use it).
Besides easy fat removal, refrigerating overnight will give you a better texture when the chili is reheated.
Serving: besides the obvious bowl-of-chili, try serving it over a bed of corn chips with cheese sprinkled on top. Another good option is to float a piece of sweet cornbread in the bowl of chili.
