Rose's Mostly-Authentic Texas Chili for Large Groups of Wimpy Non-Texans (READ IF YOU AIN'T TEXAN!!!).



Recipe and photo tutorial.

Chili is my passion. I will never share a competition recipe but I have several others in my cooking rotation as well. This is a favorite of mine.

This is a variation of my Texas Red/Chili Queen chili. Basically an OLD recipe traced to its roots, and then diluted a bit with some Midwestern additions for the wimpier palates. I will show the variations  from the original recipe as I go, if you ain't no wimp. This milder version is better for groups, when you may fear the chili is too hot for commoners.

Back in the 1800's, Christian preachers commonly said chili possessed those who ate it with deamons, because they acted possessed after eating the spicy concoction. This recipe steps the spice back a bit, you know, for wimps and people who don't want an exorcism.

This is based on the oldest, simplest, most authentic, whilst still delicious, chili recipe I have found on the interwebs.

Here is the original recipe (my updated version will follow):

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ORIGINAL SAN ANTONIO CHILI
Chili queen recipe
2 pounds beef shoulder, cut into ½-inch cubes
1 pound pork shoulder, cut into ½-inch cubes
¼ cup suet
¼ cup pork fat
3 medium-sized onions, chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 quart water
4 ancho chiles
1 serrano chile
6 dried red chiles
1 tablespoon comino seeds, freshly ground
2 tablespoons Mexican oregano
Salt to taste

Place lightly floured beef and pork cubes in with suet and pork fat in heavy chili pot and cook quickly, stirring often. Add onions and garlic and cook until they are tender and limp. Add water to mixture and simmer slowly while preparing chiles. Remove stems and seeds from chiles and chop very finely. Grind chiles in molcajete and add oregano with salt to mixture. Simmer another 2 hours. Remove suet casing and skim off some fat. Never cook frijoles with chiles and meat. Serve as separate dish.

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Rose's recipe:

This was made in a camp style, 12", Dutch oven, for a smaller stove top vessel, consider roughly halving this recipe or cooking in batches.

Mesquite wood, chunks, chips or briquettes.

2-3 lbs beef roast, with marbling

Rack of pork spare ribs cut into 2-3 rib sections. Keep the bone on the meat.

1 lb ground pork or beef

A bunch of chile peppers, mainly Ancho, Green Bell, Jalepeno, Anaheim, serranos and habaneros are optional if you want to add the heat.

Basically you want about as much veggie by weight as you have meat.

Bacon, optional, used to render its fat before cooking in the cauldron, or you can trim some marbling off the beef roast and use that to render fat, then remove remaining fatty beef chunks. Olive oil works fine as an alternative fat to start the cook. You just need something to keep stuff from sticking too much too fast.

1-1 &1/2 large onions, diced

5-8 or so cloves of garlic, chopped roughly, no need to mince, they will dissolve

Water, beef stock, beer or coffee for broth. I prefer water, surprisingly. It allows the other flavors to pop.

Mexican Oregano - a few tablespoons

Good chili powder - 1/4 - 1/2 cup

Cumin seeds, 1-2 tbs

Bay Leaf - 2-3 whole

Small can of tomato paste

A few tomatoes, diced

One lime

Masa Harina - corn meal for taste and thickness

Salt to taste

THERE ARE NO BEANS IN TEXAS CHILI

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First, you need to get your fire going, and for Texas style chili, you are going to need a bit of mesquite smoke. Mesquite was the common fire wood near San Antonio in the days of the Chili Queen, so it is an important ingredient that lends an authenticity and fragrance you don't find in restaurants.

I set the fire in the middle so my meat can sit around the outside and smoke via indirect heating while I smoke and roast my peppers in the middle (where my kettle of chili will also be placed for cooking later). The meat is rubbed in salt.

Peppers have a waxy skin outside their flesh which comes apart from the flesh when roasted. Especially if you let them steam in a plastic bag after removing them from the fire and letting them cool enough as to not melt the plastic.

Peppers can take a surprising amount of direct flame and it is ok for them to get some char. That is the waxy skin you will be removing anyway.



Keep removing chiles as finished and adding new ones to roast. Roast all sides of the chiles.

Cook and smoke with the barbecue grill's LID ON whenever possible so your meat can catch also some smoke and sear. It is ok if the outer meat gets a little dry and rough. It will be stewing in liquid for several hours. Original chilis were made with salt beef and/or salt pork. Very salty, dried and cured meat, like jerky. A little texture is a good thing.



It could take a few batches to get all your peppers grilled and it may take a while until they are all nicely roasted.







Once the peppers are properly roasted and sweated, remove what skin you can (you don't have to get it all, just make an effort), seed and dice the peppers. Seeds can kick up the heat but they also add bitterness. If too bitter, some sugar can be added late in the process to counteract but I try to avoid having to sugar my chili. To me, it means I messed up.







Chop onions and garlic. Add with bacon, fat and/or oil to a bottom heated cauldron or Dutch oven. Add half your cumin, chili powder and Mexican oregano since they are all fat soluble and will taste better when heated with fat, like a curry paste. In fact, chili is very much like a Mexican/American curry.



Add tomato paste to the mix. Tomato paste tastes good with a bit of a fry/roast before adding the big ingredients.

TOMATO is NOT an original chili ingredient and it dilutes the flavor. But this is my chili for wimps and therefore I have used tomato. It is more safe for an average Midwestern palate but it is not exactly authentic.



See why it reminds me of a curry paste?



Chop beef into cubes and ribs into 2-3 rib sections still on the bone. The bones will help add to the stockyness of the broth.

In hindsight I should have chopped the beef into smaller cubes.



Add ground beef or pork (I used pork) and sliced tomato. Also, not exactly authentic but I find large groups like the familiar mouth feel of ground meat in their chili.



Also add the bay leafs and the rest of your meat. Some salt at this point may be wise too. Use your best judgement. Always go lighter with salt early on because you can add more later.



And of course, your chiles.

I focused on the larger milder chile peppers for this wimpy version, but really, chili with a spicy bite is more authentic. The goal was to encourage the consumption of beer and the release of endorphins making those who ate it look like they were possessed by the Devil. The more you know...



Like I said, I prefer water, simple water as broth, but this time I used beef broth to further dilute the spicy nature of this dish.



And perhaps a nice beer with a hint of cactus.



Before adding enough water to cover.

Bring to a boil, lid off, so the chili can still catch some smoke, or your smoke wood is going to waste, also the smell of chili cooked on mesquite is something everyone should experience before they die.



Keep the kettle cover on. I just can't photograph the food with it on.



I know tomatoes add acidity, but the lime adds authenticity and some extra Mex to the Tex so add half a lime now, and the other towards the end of the cook, but before serving.

After the chili has cooked for around an hour or so without a lid, it should be safe to taste for seasoning. Now is a fine time to add most if not all of the rest of your seasonings (although I tend to withhold some for right near the end since fresh spice adds some dimension that differs from spice that has been cooking for hours).

Now you may add more water if needed, and the lid for your cauldron or Dutch oven. It has enough smoke by now.



This is a secret weapon. Course corn flour not only thickens your chili but adds a fantastic Texican flavor. It also gives the chili its trademark orangey undertones to the red. This comes in handy soon.

You can crumble corn chips and add them to the chili in lieu of Masa since they are basically the same thing.



And you see? The masa thickens the chili, making the fat very visible at the top and the fat...



The fat is a GREAT place to add your final drop of seasonings, because they are, again, fat soluble. Let them simmer in the fat for a few minutes and then stir them in.

You know it is ready when the rib meat is falling off the bone. Remove rib meat and bones. Chop the meat and remove as much cartilage as possible (a little inedible grit is fine, and adds to the burly, outdoor cowboy-ness of the dish). Return pork meat to chili.



Finally, skim off as much fat as you would like to.

I like a little fat to remain because, like curry, a little red oil on top of a bowl of chili is quite beautiful... but too much will give it the mouth feel of grease. Use the fat until the very end of the cook then remove it before it destroys the eating experience.

Also, it is hard to get an accurate taste until much of the fat is removed or your spoon will keep getting coated in it.

Do a final taste. Chili can handle a surprising amount of salt before it tastes too salty and until you reach that satirization point, the salt will keep bringing out the flavors of your chili powder (especially if you make your own or invest in the really good stuff).

Add the other half of the lime by squeezing its juice in.

Finally, for best results, refrigerate overnight, reheat on the stove top the next day, and serve. Otherwise the flavors, particularly the smoke, won't fully mingle. It tastes fine the day it is cooked but best results come with waiting.



The only authentic garnishes, in my opinion, are chopped onions, lime wedges and/or corn chips or corn tortillas, or perhaps a side of Spanish rice and refried beans... but since this version is for wimps, a bit of sour cream or cheddar cheese is allowed.

Enjoy!!!

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geokills said:
Well done, scarcely a thing quite so comforting as a nice big bowl of chili and chips!

I also love toasting an english muffin with some cheese, hit it with an over-easy egg, ladle some chili and sprinkle green onions (and more cheese) on top.


     

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