Cookaholics Bulletin Board

The following recipe was published by Texas Monthly in their weekly email recipes. Now, I live in Canada, but even here I believe improvements could be made. Your suggestions, as always, would be appreciated.

Will Rogers’ Chili
Recipe from Miriam “Ma” Ferguson

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 pounds ground beef
2 teaspoons cumin seed
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon tobasco
2 cans diced tomato, do not drain
2 cups hot water
salt to taste

Heat olive oil in large saucepan and sauté onions and garlic over medium heat until tender, about 8 minutes. Do not brown. Add meat and sauté until lightly colored. Drain off excess fat before adding cumin, chili powder, and tobasco. Add tomatoes with their juices and hot water. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer about one hour. Salt to taste. Serves 6 to 8.

I'm not Frank, but here is what I'd do. It looks a lot like what I threw together the other day with some cubed pork loin.

With 4 pounds of meat I'd have half a cup of chili powder. I also wouldn't use all ground meat - half of it being half-inch dice is good.
Replace the water with beer.
Grind the cumin, maybe double the amount to start and add more to taste.
Consider draining the tomatoes.

EDIT: Oh, yeah -- ground cayenne in place of the Tabasco. Maybe a teaspoon or two? Depends on your sensitivity.

I'd try to get the Muir Glen roasted tomato products. We just used these for chili last time and it was really good (one lge can whole roasted tomats and one large can crushed roasted tomats....plus one can of plain tomat sauce).

We also do a variety of meats, and lots of it. We use mild italian chicken sausage, ground beef, trimmed small chunks of chuck, and plain old pork hot italian sausage.

Lynn

As Requested....enjoy

here is is a recipe I modified from C.V. Wood Jr’s, an “undefeated World Chili Champion” Undenia-Bull World Championship Chili. This isn’t a throw together and forget recipe, but if you really want folks to sit up and take notice and you have the time, give it a try. If folks appreciate a good bowl of chili, you’ll get kudos for this one.

40 oz chicken broth
1 ½ qts. water
4 oz veg. oil
4 lbs flank steak
5 lbs ground chuck (Whole roasts ground to a chili grind)
¼ cup finely diced celery
6 lg ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped (or canned chopped tomatoes if good tomatoes aren’t available)
2 tsp sugar
6 large Anaheim chiles, roasted, peeled, seeded and cut into ¼: dice (I like to roast over hot coals)
8 oz full bodied beer (I use regular Bud.)
3 tsp oregano
3 tsp ground cumin
3 tsp black pepper
4 tsp salt
5 tbsp chili powder (I use the Pendery’s, mail ordered from Ft Worth) (http://www.penderys.com/ ) “Top Hat” blend)
1 tsp cilantro
1 tsp thyme
½ tsp MSG
3 medium onions
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
2 cloves garlic
1 lb jack cheese
1 large lime

Trim all fat from the flank steaks and dice into 3/8” to ½” cubes, or better yet, grill whole flank steaks over very hot coals till nicely browned…then cube.

In a two quart sauce pan put celery, peeled and chopped tomatoes (I use a qt of home canned tomatoes if out of season) and sugar. Simmer about 1 ½ hours, or until completely tender.

Put the oregano, cumin, black pepper, salt, chili powder, cilantro, thyme and MSG into beer and stir until all lumps dissolve.

Chop onions into ¼” pieces (about 2 cups); chop peppers into 3/8” pieces (about 2 cups); mince garlic.

In a 7qt heavy Dutch oven put the chicken stock, the celery-tomato mixture, the chilies, the spices and beer and the garlic. Stir and bring to a low simmer.

Brown ground chuck in 2 tbsp oil in two batches if necessary.

Add the browned chuck to chicken broth mixture and bring to a low boil for about 30 minutes.

Add cubed flank to mixture and cook at a low boil for about an hour.

Add the chopped onions and peppers.

Cook over low boil for two to three hours, stirring every 20-30 minutes.

Remove from heat and allow to cool for an hour. Refrigerate for 24 hours. Reheat, adding 1/6th lb of grated jack cheese for every quart, stirring until completely dissolved. About a minute before serving, add the juice of the lime and stir.

This recipe makes about 6 quarts.

This is the basic recipe, but there are many valid modifications. I might add that adding beans is not a valid modification.

Hey Frank, what's a "Chili grind?"

Just a course grind,...hamburger grind is too "fine" ... it's a textural thing...

Well Praise the Lord!! Frank posted a chili recipe?? What's next, a stock market recovery ?

I can't wait to try this, thanks for posting! I like the idea of grilling the flank steak first, then cubing.

Lynn

We will call it a Christmas miracle.. I fully expect you to grill the flank...wino is a grilling wimp, sez it's "too cold" ...wino, you gonna let a girl out grill you??

It's a good thing I love fishing and hunting 'cuz waiting 3 days for Da Bull Man to take that bait was just starting to tingle my 'worry sensors'. WHOOPEE!! - THANKS FRANK!!

Ha Frank, one of my shoveling priorities has been keeping a corridor open to the grill!!