This is a reanimation of the Vicaribus blog as lived by Miro Kazakoff and Ehren Foss in 2004 and 2005. The photos may be spotty.

Chili II

Posted by Miro recipes

Since I do a fair amount of cooking, I’ve decided to try and post my recipes and notes on the blog. I'm posting them in as a seperate author and will generally date them so they don't show up on the main page (today is an exception). You'll have to go looking for them in the right column.

Perhaps others will find it helpful. Mostly it will be helpful for me to keep a log of what I’ve tried and how it’s worked out. As such, you’ll see plenty of my commentary on how things look and taste so I can remember where to adjust things if I don’t like the taste of the finished dish. Tonight, I’m making round two of my chili. Round one, like all the dishes I've made so far is somewhat lost to the ages. This is becuase I lost my first notebook to a wash cycle in Austin and my second notebook is buried in the sands of the Oregon dunes.

I’m going to write these recipes up country-Grandma style in narrative form rather than cookbook style, because it's easier to taking notes that way while cooking.

That said, the style of my acutal grandmother, bless her precise heart, was write all her recipes in proper cookbook style with strict measurments on index cards. They were always typed on a typewriter that somehow typed in cursive. I wonder if her sticky bun recipe is still kicking around mom & dad’s house somewhere?

This recipe is loosely adapted from several basic chili recipes in Frank Tolbert’s “A Bowl of Red,” the classic treatise/history/anthropological study/comedy/manifesto on chili.

1) Coarsely chopped a 2.3 lbs Beef chuck top blade roast into roughly half inch chunks. Cut out the fatty parts.

2) Browned the beef in small batches in the cast iron with half a large onion. The beef tasted of the livery flavor I hate in bad cuts of beef. It was also a little more tender then I thought it should be. Did I buy too nice a cut?

3) Transferred the beef and onions to the stewpot. Deglazed the cast iron with a bottle of corona and poured that over the beef. Almost came to the top of the beef.

4) Add about two and half tablespoon sized spoonfulls of chili powder. I always forget which has an E and which has an I, but this is chili powder I made myself from random dried chilis purchased from Texas and California. Not sure which chilies they were. Some were smooth, some wrinkled (possibly smoked). None of them are hot. The grind isn’t very good so it’s a little thicker than a powder. Add a small handful of Kosher salt (probably a large teaspoon).

5) Raised to a boil and lower to a simmer for ~20 minutes. Or at least I think it’s a simmer. The pot is tall and the kitchen lights don’t quite see all the way down there. I have to pull out a flashlight to see if the pot is simmering.

6) The taste of the beef is improved, like good beef and chili flavor, which is of course the point. There are still plenty of bits of chili floating in the red water. There’s even a bit of heat in the flavor.

7) Added one can of diced tomatoes. I know purists decry tomatoes in chili, mostly I’m writing that just so purists know that I know that they don’t think tomatoes belong. Also added a large handful oregano (say a tablespoon and a half), a medium handful garlic powder (perhaps a tablespoon), also added a small handful of cumin (perhaps 2 teaspoons, maybe less). Small handful of cayenne (maybe a teaspoon). The water level is now to the top of the beef. The taste of the liquid is a bit too garlicy and even a bit more cumin-ey than I like. The kick is right for me, but a bit much for others.

8) Bring to a boil and simmer long enough to watch one downloaded episode of Good Eats

9) Added a large pinch of salt and 5 or 6 shakes of oregano. Also added two medium spoonfuls of corn meal. Last time I was at this stage there was a fair amount of fat to skim. Not so this time. Perhaps I was more vigilant about draining the meat after browning and the cut was also leaner since it wasn’t ground beef. The liquid is 2/3 of the way up and already very thick even before adding the corn meal.

10) Simmer for another 10-15 minutes. There’s a little sticking to the pan above the the heat source. I stir gently to break it up without picking up too much burnt. I curse the cheapness of the pot.

Assessment: Tasty. A little on the cumin-ey side. Next time focus on the chili powder flavor. Consider adding more liquid through the process and simmering for even longer. Chop the meat finer and consider adding some richness with either beef stock or some additional fat next time. Try to get a different cut, but who knows how to figure out the meat cuts that show up in a supermarket. This stuff was discounted from $5 a pound. Aim for cheaper.

Further assesment: reheated it the next day with a can of beans added. The flavors had mellowed alot. I liked it much better. Ehren liked the texture better than the ground meat version. I still think a slightly finer chop, more chilli powder, slightly less cumin.