There are so many variations and so many “right” ways to make chili that I have all but given up on being authentic. I’ve made chili with beans, I’ve made chili without beans, I’ve added pineapples, I’ve added chocolate, I’ve even added root vegetables like carrots to it. I’ve used different cuts and different kinds of meats. Stew beef, ground beef, chicken, and turkey have all been used. Was my turkey chili less of a chili than my ground beef one? Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t care. I still called it chili.
Bowl of chili.
If you think about it, chili likely evolved over time as a stew on the road, made by ranch-hands throwing in anything that was both available and edible. Over time, different regions popularized different variations of it. If you like beans in your chili, go for it. Like many one-pot soups or stews, you can alter this endlessly and still call it whatever you want (at least, I do). I let others argue about what is a real chili, I just want to eat.
So really, the spirit of chili is not whether it has beans in it or not, but whether it is good, filling, and (probably) cheap. Regardless of what “authentic” chili is, this gets the one important part right: It tastes good.
As a bonus, this chili let me use up some surpluses I had in my kitchen. How? Click through for the recipe and more info.
An unfinished enormous bag of tortilla chips purchased for a party were beginning to go a bit stale. I always feel guilty throwing out food, so I wanted to find a good way to use them. Then I remembered that Alton Brown made a chili that used tortilla chips as a thickening agent! Great, problem solved!
I changed his recipe a bit because I didn’t have a pressure cooker. If you want his method, go here.
Ingredients
3 pounds stew meat (beef, pork, and/or lamb) (cut to 1-inch pieces)
4 rashers of bacon (cut into small pieces)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 (12-ounce) bottles of beer, a medium ale, bock or anything with some body
1 (16-ounce) container medium heat salsa
30 tortilla chips
5 chipotle peppers canned in adobo sauce, chopped
2 tablespoons adobo sauce (from the chipotle peppers in adobo)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 1/2 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
Directions
- Place a large dutch oven (aka a big pot) over low to med-low heat. Add the bacon and cover; cook for 10-15 minutes. You want to render the fat from this but not crisp them yet. When a lot of the fat looks rendered, you can boost the heat to medium-high until you hear the bacon begin to crisp (take the cover off, please). Once cooked, place the bacon bits into a large mixing bowl and pour the bacon fat out into a small bowl and let let to cool for 5 minutes.
- In another large mixing bowl, toss stew meat with the bacon fat and the salt. Turn on your oven to 300F.
- Place the dutch oven over high heat and, once hot, add the meat in 3 or 4 batches. Sear the meat until brown on all sides. Each batch should take 2-3 minutes. When each batch is browned, place in the large bowl that already has the bacon pieces in it. Repeat with each batch of meat.
- After the last batch, add about half a beer to the pot and scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen the fond that formed when searing the meat. The word of the day is “deglazing”.
- Add the rest of the beer, the meat, the bacon bits, salsa, chipotle peppers, adobo sauce, tomato paste, chili powder and cumin. Stir the whole pot a few times. Cover and put in a 300F oven for 4 hours.
- Take out of the oven and serve. I didn’t garnish this chili with anything (but I did use some of the almost stale tortilla chips to eat the chili off of.)
 Rendering the bacon fat. |
 Browning the meat. |
 Bowl of chili. |
A few notes:
- You can use any meat you want for this. I recommend beef, pork and/or lamb. Whatever is cheap. If it’s a bit fatty and has some connective tissue, that’s fine. It’ll be cooked long and slow so it’ll be tender whatever you do to it.
- I used bacon fat to sear the meat in, you can use any oil you have (though canola, vegetable or something with a high smoke point would be best.) I happen to have a lot of bacon in my house, so I use it a lot. It will save you some time if you just use oil.
- If the fond looks like it’s going to burn before you get to your next batch of meat to brown, go ahead and deglaze the pan with some beer and just pour the beer into a cup. Add the liquid from the cup to the pot when you add all the meat and beer together.
- If you don’t drink beer, use chicken or beef broth. I used AmberBock left over from a party, so I used that.
- I also like a lot of heat in my chili. I believe AB only used 2 chipotle peppers, I used 5. Next time I’ll probably use more.
- Adjust the salt and pepper after letting it cook through. The use of the tortilla chips in this recipe can add an unexpected amount of salt.
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