Last fall there was some chili talk and I said I'd post mine next time I did a batch. Well, a few weeks ago I did a batch, so now I'm posting...
Because of the tomato content and long cook time, I used a 12 QT SS pot for the actual chili. But I used my #10 BSR to brown all the meat, sauté all the fresh peppers and onion, and make the roux.
Meat, beef is the obvious choice and I love beef, but past experimentation has taught me that turkey actually makes a pretty mean chili. The problem with turkey is it's always regular ground, not the preferred-for-chili coarse ground. So this time I included both, coarse ground beef and regular ground turkey, about 4 lbs of each browned in three batches...
I never use chili powder, instead I used dried ancho peppers. Down here in Texas I have a wide variety of dried peppers available and in the past I've used a combination of several of them, but ancho is the best (BTW the ancho pepper is the dried version of the poblano pepper). I also prefer to include authentic dried chipotle peppers (dried and smoked version of red jalapeños) when I can find them. When I can't, the canned version in adobo sauce (sauce rinsed off and seeded) serves but is very inferior.
They're much easier to stem and seed while still dry, then soak in hot water to rehydrate while doing other prep. Then both the peppers and the soaking water go into the blender along with a few cloves of fresh garlic and pureed smooth.
For my fresh pepper blend, this time I chose poblano, hatch, green bell, and red bell peppers. Usually I do a 1" dice but this time I did a small dice. Along with some Texas sweet onion, they get sautéed until they're a bit caramelized before being added.
(cont'd in next post)
Because of the tomato content and long cook time, I used a 12 QT SS pot for the actual chili. But I used my #10 BSR to brown all the meat, sauté all the fresh peppers and onion, and make the roux.
Meat, beef is the obvious choice and I love beef, but past experimentation has taught me that turkey actually makes a pretty mean chili. The problem with turkey is it's always regular ground, not the preferred-for-chili coarse ground. So this time I included both, coarse ground beef and regular ground turkey, about 4 lbs of each browned in three batches...
I never use chili powder, instead I used dried ancho peppers. Down here in Texas I have a wide variety of dried peppers available and in the past I've used a combination of several of them, but ancho is the best (BTW the ancho pepper is the dried version of the poblano pepper). I also prefer to include authentic dried chipotle peppers (dried and smoked version of red jalapeños) when I can find them. When I can't, the canned version in adobo sauce (sauce rinsed off and seeded) serves but is very inferior.
They're much easier to stem and seed while still dry, then soak in hot water to rehydrate while doing other prep. Then both the peppers and the soaking water go into the blender along with a few cloves of fresh garlic and pureed smooth.
For my fresh pepper blend, this time I chose poblano, hatch, green bell, and red bell peppers. Usually I do a 1" dice but this time I did a small dice. Along with some Texas sweet onion, they get sautéed until they're a bit caramelized before being added.
(cont'd in next post)
