Thursday, March 05, 2020

chili in a rush

A decent chili normally simmers away for at least an hour. What follows is an indecent chili, which had been made in something of a rush. This was a callback to my old chili-making days, when I didn't work off a recipe and simply threw together elements that made intuitive sense—beef, onion flakes, salt, pepper, garlic powder, various spices, and canned beans:


To borrow a chef's idiom: the chili is a bit, shall we say, cumin-forward. I may dump in a little extra passata di pomodoro to counteract that. Not that the chili is bad; it's just a bit aggressive, especially with the other spicy elements in it: jalapeƱo juice, cayenne, sriracha, and some lovely, lovely chipotle powder.

I ate two bowls of chili for dinner. Blast-off is scheduled for tomorrow morning. My toilet trembles in fear.

One of these days, I need to make real Texas chili: no beans and no tomatoes. Authentic Texas chili comes straight from Mexico, and it's normally a no-fucking-around recipe that is little more than meat, spices, and time.



2 comments:

  1. Looks good from here! I saw an article somewhere about unusual ingredients people use in chili. The ones I remember are peanut butter, pineapple, and apples. Hmm. In a weird way, I can see the pineapple maybe working. And yes, I'll cop to occasionally ordering a "Hawaiian" pizza. Damn, I just talked myself into trying that on my next batch. Thanks for the inspiration!

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  2. The pineapples make sense because of the combination of sweetness and acidity that they provide. Peanut butter is a stumper... maybe it affects sweetness and consistency, and I've heard of people slathering peanut butter onto their hamburgers before, so perhaps there's a natural affinity between beef and peanut butter. That's not too surprising, I guess, especially when you look at Southeast Asian flavor profiles. As for apples... no clue.

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