Chili, The National Dish of Texas

Chili almost qualifies for an entire food group for the majority of Texans. We’ve eaten it as a stand alone spicy stew and as a garnish or gravy that completes many Tex Mex specialties. We have chili cook-offs and chili teams and Pace for goodness sake, the creators of the home chili kit, Wick Fowler’s Two-Alarm Chili. We Texans eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack.

Imagine how odd and out of place I sometimes felt. I spent most of my life thinking I hated chili. I’m from Texas so you can imagine that was almost unheard of…it was sacrilege! I could deal with small amounts of the “gravy” portion but could not handle the meat that went with it.

There used to be a commercial on television as I was growing up. A complete campaign for the Wolf Brand Chili company and it asked the viewer, “When was the last time you had a great big steaming bowl of Wolf Brand Chili?”

And I would always race to answer, “Not nearly long enough!” Of course, their answer was, “Well that’s too long!” In one entire can of chili, if there was one piece of gristle or tripe or tendon lurking in its brick red depths, it was destined to end up in my bowl, on my spoon and in my mouth. Uggh. Dinner over!

I hated canned chili and until Wick Fowler came out with 2-Alarm Chili where you could add you own hamburger, you could threaten me with just about anything and I would still decline to eat it. Not even Wick could save the day if Mom announced she intended to use “chili grind” meat. You see, “chili grind” is a coarse setting for grinding meats and it results in chunks of gristle landing in your bowl, on your spoon and in…déjà vu. So chili grind was just not allowable in my book!

It wasn’t until I was grown and gone and Mom “discovered” an incredible recipe for chili-red as Dad liked to call it. The recipe called for using pork shoulder, cubed and browned in oil with re-hydrated chile peppers and onions, cooked until meltingly tender. I fell in love with that chili but boy howdeeeee! She and Dad sure made it look like a bunch of hard work to make. So I deferred learning to make it.

Dad died almost 15 years ago and it wasn’t until about two years ago that I first took a stab at this dish, but I had to do it my way and that meant using good old Texas beef in place of the pork. After all, the American cowboys didn’t cook chili on pig drives, no, they were cattle drives! So I really doubted that they used pork unless they ran across a very unfortunate javelina (which was a real possibility)! I also found it was much less trouble to make than it had first appeared to my inexperienced eyes.

My authentic Texas Chili is sheer perfection in a bowl. This isn’t Wolf Brand Chili. It’s not Midwestern Chili. This is real Texas chili like the old trail bosses or Chili Queens of San Antonio used to make over a hundred years ago. It’s a purist concoction of meat, dried and fresh chiles and spices that will leave tears of gratitude rolling down your face. And nary a piece of gristle or tendon in sight!

Historically, chili was a method of wet cooking tough cuts of meat out on the trail. The spices and chili peppers helped kill the bad or “off” tastes of spoiling meat or meat on the edge of turning and also helped kill any bad bacteria. The wet stewing method helped tenderize the toughest saddle leather and worked great with many sides like tortillas, biscuits, rice, beans (never in the chili, please - that’s a hanging offense in Texas) and also with Tex Mex dishes such as chili rellenos, chili and eggs, cheese enchiladas with chili gravy, tacos and more.

Beans have no place in real Texas chili! The old fashioned, purist chili of the old timers won’t even have tomatoes. So in the true spirit of the dish, I took Mom and Dad’s Chili recipe and adapted it to the most extreme purist form. What you get is a spicy stew so thick with delicious, rich red sauce it doesn’t even need to be thickened with the masa harina (ground corn flour) typical of Texas chili. But you add it anyway to get the taste of the dish so familiar to us all.

The next time you get a hankerin’ for real, old fashioned, authentic Red. Give the national dish of Texas a try. I guarantee you will sit up and sing The Eyes of Texas by the time you scrape and lick the last morsel of brick red goodness from your bowl.

Authentic Texas Chili
By Blue Zebra
Yield 10-12 bowls of chili

Ingredients:
2 Large Onions, peeled and chopped
8 Cloves Garlic, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup Olive Oil, Lard, or Bacon Grease
7 Dried Red Ancho Chiles, washed, stemmed, seeded
5 Dried Red New Mexican Chiles, washed, stemmed, seeded
3 Dried Red Guajillo Chiles, washed, stemmed, seeded
2 Jalapeno Peppers, stemmed, chopped with seeds (fresh)
4 # Beef Chuck Roast, trimmed, boned, and 1” cubes or Ground Chuck
2 tsp granulated garlic powder
2 Tbsp Cumin, ground (preferably from toasted cumin seeds)
1 Tbsp Oregano, leaves (preferably Mexican oregano)
1 Tbsp Coriander, ground (preferably from toasted coriander seeds)
2 Tbsp Dried Onion Flakes
1/4 tsp Cayenne pepper
Water to cover meat
1 Tbsp Kosher Salt
1 Tbsp Black Pepper
1/4 cup Masa Harina

Method:

In medium sized saucepan over medium heat, place stemmed, seeded, dried chiles. Cover pods with water. Bring chiles to a slow simmer and reduce heat. Stir occasionally to redistribute chile peppers under the water. Simmer gently for 20-30 minutes.

Trim and cube the chuck roast into 1” dice or alternately, you can use ground chuck hamburger grind (or chili grind if you are fearless and don’t mind a bit of gristle here or there).

In small saute pan, toast the cumin and coriander seeds until you can smell the oils of the seeds. Be careful not to burn them. I stir constantly, use a dry pan and cook over medium heat. Once toasted, pour into a coffee grinder dedicated to grinding spices. Alternately, you can use a morter and pestle or molcahete to grind the seeds into spice.

Using paper towels, blot moisture from the meat. Season the meat with a little of the salt, black pepper, ground cumin, ground coriander and garlic powder.

Heat skillet or cast iron dutch oven over high heat and add 1/3 of the grease being used. Add 1/3 of the seasoned meat and quickly sear and lightly brown the meat. Remove from pan and add the next portion of oil. Let the pan heat up again and add the next 1/3 of the meat. Continue with this method until all the meat is browned and set aside. (Note: Each stove is different. You will have to get a feel for how hot your stove cooks. You want just enough heat to brown the meat, instead of boiling or sweating it in juices. This means you need a hot enough pan that the juices emitted from the meat evaporate from the heat in the pan as quickly as they are released, allowing the meat to brown on the outside. Check to make sure you are browning the meat and not burning the bottom of the pan. The meat will still be raw in the center. Remove beef to a Dutch oven and hold until vegetables are cooked. Be sure to add all of the drippings from the beef.

Add chopped onion and garlic to the skillet used to cook your meat and sauté over medium heat until vegetables are tender and the onion has begun to turn translucent.



Add the vegetables to the meat in the Dutch oven. Deglaze the skillet with a ladle of chile cooking water and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. These browned bits are called fond. They add flavor to the dish.

Remove the now cooling peppers from the chile water and drain them in a colander. Reserve the cooking water that is being drained off and any chile water left in the sauce pan. This liquid will be added back to the meat mixture when you cook the chili.



Place chile pods into the bowl of your food processor fitted with the knife blade or place them into your blender. Add a couple of ladles of the chile water and blend or pulse processor until chiles form a loose paste. At this point it’s up to you. I like to strain my chile mixture through wire mesh strainer. This keeps the course skin separate from the smooth paste of the flesh and the liquid from the chiles. The skin can be tough and sometimes bitter. But straining is not strictly necessary, if you are trying to save time.

Add the chile puree to the meat mixture. Add remaining chile water to the point where the meat and vegetables are covered. Turn heat to medium and bring up to a slow simmer. Adjust heat to maintain slow simmer. Do not boil. (This should be about low to medium low to maintain a simmer.)

Mix all seasonings except salt in a small bowl. Add 1/2 of the seasoning at the beginning of cooking the chili. As the chili cooks, taste and add more seasoning if you like. Add salt about 3/4 of the way to done. Chili will cook about 2-3 hours over low to medium low heat or until chuck is tender and falling apart and all portions of the “broth” are a cohesive red color. Adjust salt as necessary at end of cooking.

As the chili cooks, the moisture will evaporate. Keep adding a little of the chili water or plain tap water to the mixture to keep it from evaporating too much. The object is to condense the “stew” but still leave enough moisture to make a thick, liquid broth.

Combine the masa harina with 1/2 cup water and shake in covered jar. Shake until well combined and smooth, no lumps. While chili is at a gentle simmer, add masa slurry, stirring continually until well combined. Masa will thicken the chili slightly and add the distinctive flavor associated with Texas red chili.

Serving suggestions:
Chili with oyster crackers
Chili with cheese and onions and saltine crackers
Chili over rice
Chili and eggs
Chili spaghetti
Chili cheese enchiladas
Chili relleno
Tacos
Taco Salad
Chili Dogs
Chili Burgers
Chili Mac

Blue Zebra NOTE:
I usually cook my chili out on my propane grill or in my oven. I set the temperature to about 300 degrees and allow it to cook with the lid on for about 3 hours. I stir it and check the liquid level about every 20 minutes or so. This keeps it from sticking on the bottom of the pan and allows enough long, slow cooking time for the meat to tenderize and fall apart. You want the meat to be “fork tender” and the broth to be rich and thick on its own.

Stay tuned for the Ultimate Chili Dog, The National Sandwich of Texas!

Read more->

What In The Fricassee Have You Done With My Chicken? Chicken Stew Secrets Revealed

Ok so what do you do with a hundred pound chicken? It sounds like the opener to a cheesy joke, doesn’t it? But for those of you who took the time to read The Naked Truth About Hens, you will know I’m almost 100% entirely, serious…Well, maybe I’m only about 20% serious, but I did learn one thing much to our chagrin. Clearly, you do not roast a hundred pound chicken, unless you love foul fowl. I found that out quite unequivocally.

The voice in my head mocks me and I hear it reverberate again and again. What do you do with a hundred pound chicken-chicken-chicken? In desperation I answer the voice now shouting in the recesses of my aching brain, “The answer isfrick, frick, frick, fricassee! You cook the paprikash out of that bird and if that doesn’t work, you smother the little clucker till it makes a sauce piquant! If that still isn’t good enough, then you let it stew in its own juice!” Deep breath. Breathe. At last, the whining voice resides.

Long, slow, moist heat isn’t really much of a secret. Most people who have been cooking any length of time, or have alternately watched one season of FoodTV know low, slow and wet is guaranteed to break down the ropey muscle fibers of a tough cut of meat. But how do you add the flavor to that meat or chicken, in this case?

Growing up, Mom used to make a very traditional Southern dish called smothered chicken. Oh my, I still smack my lips thinking about it! She’d bread and fry the chicken pieces until golden outside but still raw inside. Then she made a roux the color of caramel or not-quite-pecan and added onion, bell pepper and celery (the Cajun trinity, don’t ya know), water and chicken and let it simmer for hours. Mom served it over rice with a side of cornbread and turnip greens. You almost couldn’t beat this dish for pure cold weather comfort food!

If you add Cajun spice and a healthy dose of cayenne “peppah”, pepper sauce, jalapenos and tomatoes you go from a simple smother to a sauce piquant, pronounced sauce pee-cawnt, in a hurry! This is a lively Cajun version of a smother that just rocks my world, completely! The sauce piquant works great for ordinary chicken but it reaches nirvana when you use it to stew dove or rabbit. Paul Prudhomme’s recipe elevates it to celestial. It's so fine. It will seriously make you want to sit up and "slap yor mamma"!

Aromatics like a mirapoix (French trinity), a mixture of onion, celery and carrot is another way to add flavor to stew. Seasoning the chicken pieces with herbs and spices is yet, one more way. Still more secrets to flavorful and tender chicken stews include browning the meat prior to cooking in liquid, making a dark roux, adding acids such as wine, vinegar and mustards or you could just do what we did to tame our hundred pound bird, you could do all of the above!

The end result for our hundred pound chicken was tasty, tender, chicken meat in a rich brown, paprika flavored gravy that had a bite of mustard and lingering mellowness of wine with a slight zip of cayenne to wake up your taste buds. I knew immediately it deserved to be accompanied by homemade spaetzle. Lucky for me it was comfort food on crack. Unlucky for you, you weren’t here to sample it, because like most brown and cream colored foods, pictures just can’t possibly do it justice.

I heartily recommend you try fricasseein' the devil outta your hundred pound chicken, soon!

Chicken Fricassee aka Chicken Paprikash
By Blue Zebra
Serves 8



Ingredients:
1 100lb Chicken (hehehe) Carcass with Legs, Thighs and Wings (everything but the breasts)*
½ Quart Brown Pan Gravy
1 Large Medium Onion
1 Green Pepper
2 Stalks Celery
1 Carrot, Large
5 Cloves Garlic
1 Quart Chicken Stock
1 tsp Thyme, dried leaves
1-1/2 Tbsp Paprika
¼ tsp Cayenne Pepper
2 Tbsp Country Style Dijon
½ Bottle White Wine
1 Quart Mushrooms
1 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 tsp Kosher Salt
1 tsp Fresh Ground Black Pepper
½ cup Sour Cream

*Recipe Note- Ok, if you don't have a hundred pound chicken, use an 8# chicken. If you still don't have one of those, use the carcasses and dark meats from two broilers or fryers or use wings, necks and dark meat to equal about 3-4 pounds of chicken meat. If you haven't previously roasted this meat, you will need to season and thoroughly brown the meat in a saute pan or roast it with veggies in the oven. I recommend roasting it in order to fully develop the brown layer of flavor in this recipe. Make sure to use extra veggies and not the ones listed in this recipe. The ones listed here are for the final compilation of the stew. This can be done the day ahead.

Method:*
Remove the skin from the cooked chicken. Separate into pieces. Chop veggies and add with chicken to Dutch oven. Add Mustard, wine and seasonings. Let simmer on very low heat. Do not boil, you want the liquid to barely move. Simmer for 1-1/2 hours or until chicken is tender. Remove carcass and chicken pieces and cover with foil. Let it cool enough to pull meat off bones and chop.

While chicken is cooling, turn up the heat so that the simmer of the liquid becomes more active. You still don’t want it to actively boil. Cook uncovered and allow the sauce to reduce. The sauce will thicken as it reduces because of the flour added to the brown gravy. If it looks too thin to you, you can always mix a couple of tablespoons of flour with a little extra wine and shake it up in a container until smooth. Pour thickener into liquid, stirring constantly to combine. Cook an additional 5-10 minutes to allow the flour to cook and for the sauce to thicken from the addition. Adding flour suspended in a liquid usually eliminates any clumping.

Add diced chicken meat back to the liquid in the final five to ten minutes of cooking. Heat through and taste to adjust seasoning. Serve over noodles, macaroni, spaetzle, rice, mashed potatoes…well, serve over just about anything carbalicious and starchy! You can even serve it over homemade bread in a pinch. Sprinkle with a touch of paprika and a little fresh chopped parsley.

Blue Zebra NOTE:
I served this like a Hungarian meal would be served: sweet and sour cabbage with caraway seeds, cinnamon applesauce, homemade spaetzle and homemade bread with butter. Not exactly what I would call a summer meal, nor a light meal, either. But necessity dictates. So, the good news is this freezes beautifully. We ate it and froze the rest in vacuum seal bags and now have chicken fricassee aka chicken paprikash aka that-chicken-stuff aka chicken stew primed and ready in our deep freeze and just waiting for Jack Frost to make his first appearance!

This stew can also be made using the wing tips from chickens you trim and with legs and thighs only, making this extremely economical. This whole meal with all the side dishes costs about $.85 per serving when made that way. Now, that’s the REAL secret to chicken stew! Read more->