One of the fun things about making chili is that it's forgiving: you can be off by a factor of two in the amount of just about any ingredient and end up with a perfectly fine dish. Another nice thing is that leftovers improve over the next day or two and can be frozen. Leftover chili makes a great topping for starchy things like tortillas, polenta, corn chips, baked potatoes, rice, or noodles.
Starting a batch of chili requires you to do a lot of things in parallel. A friend or spouse acting as a sous-chef can speed things up a lot.
(see below)Remove anything white from the rump roast. Cut the meat into strips (think fajitas) or 1/2 inch cubes. Season liberally with salt. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a frying pan and brown the meat over 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:
Briefly chop in a blender at minimum speed:
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, diced avocado, sour cream, cook pinto beans, oyster crackers, and tortillas or cornbread.
On selecting fresh chili peppers. The first thing to remember is that chili is all about chili peppers. Most good supermarkets these days stock a number of different varieties of fresh chilis, so pick up a handful (each!) of poblanos, jalapenos, serranos, anaheims, etc.
On selecting dried chili peppers. Again, chili is all about the chilis! A generous number of dried chilis such as anchos, arbols, cayennes, and chipotles, crushed in a blender or chopped by hand, are a critically important component of good chili. Some anchos are a particularly good starting point since they are large, flavorful, and not hot. Good dried chilis are not as readily available as fresh ones; I get all mine from Penzeys.
It's better to buy dried chilis (like most other dried spices) whole, rather than ground or crushed. Whole spices look prettier, last longer, and are more versatile: it's easy to smash them in a blender or mortar and pestle.
On quantities of fresh and dried chilis. This depends strongly on what sizes and varieties of peppers you have, what kind of chili you want, and what level of heat you (and your friends and family) can tolerate. I say the more the merrier, but I think I've burned out sections of my gastro-intestinal tract over the years. Remember that nobody likes it when they can't eat the main dish.
Here's a good rule of thumb: never add a pepper to your chili without tasting it first. If you can eat a medium-sized bite of a raw (or dried) chili without much discomfort, then it's probably safe to add as many of this kind of pepper as you want. If even a small bite makes you uncomfortable then watch out how many you add! Tasting the peppers as you cook is an easy and fun way to calibrate the heat of the final product. Remember that in many cases, the pepper seeds contain a significant fraction of the total heat. So you need to either taste the seeds too, or just leave them out if you want more flavor than heat.
On habaneros. I used to like these things but I don't really cook with them much anymore: the heat to flavor ratio is just too high. Plus I got tired of another aspect of these toxically hot peppers: in between handling the habs and touching your face or going to the bathroom you have to scrub your hands really carefully. This is a lesson you don't want to learn through experience...
Making roasted red peppers is easy: slice some sweet red peppers in half and put them (seeds, stems, and all) skin side up in a baking pan. Put them in the oven and broil until the skin is all black. Remove from oven and put them in a bowl and cover with a plate to let them steam. When they have cooled somewhat, peel off the papery blackened skin and remove stems and seeds.
My old chili recipe is still on the web.
Last modified: Sun Feb 13 15:15:36 2000
regehr@cs.utah.edu