Poet Chili
My old chili recipe was wrong. I was wrong about so many things, and my chili was a brutish and small minded. If you love chili, and yourself, this is the chili for you. It is a real undertaking, a full day project, eating 2.5 hours of active time, and occupying your stovetop for 6 hours or more. At the end of that, you'll have a hearty, comforting substance that speaks to the very soul.
Ingredients for a full stockpot of chili:
3 lbs chuck roast. Other meats subbed in should be a similar texture and fat content. Tougher, more flavorful meat is better here.
3 lbs dried beans. For the best quality beans that I've found so far, go to rancho gordo. They might cost 6 bucks a pound, but they double in weight when cooked, so your chili still rings in at under 5 $ pound, and the difference is worth every penny. I tend to choose a black bean, a red bean, and a white bean, and get a pound of each, for aesthetic reasons. I haven't seen a bean that will ruin a chili, if the texture comes out right. If you want to keep it cheap I'd go with great northern, black, and dark kidney from your local grocery, but take a look at how gorgeous some of the beans RG has are.
1.5 lbs sugar beet root (chopped into bite sized chunks)(you don't need the greens for this recipe - I used to sweeten with honey or sugar, but carrots and beets do this job better)
3 large onions (chopped how you like)(I usually go with 2 yellow and one red, but all onions are delicious) "the secret is to undercook the onions. Everyone gets to know each other in the pot" -Kevin from "The Office"
2 28 oz cans of crushed tomatoes. (or get whole tomatoes and smush em up with your hands, spraying juice everywhere. That would be kind of poetic, right?)
5 tbs olive oil.
3 12 oz bottles of decent beer. IPA preferred.
balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, to taste
6 tablespoons kosher salt
A whole bulb of garlic diced tiny
Chili peppers. My best chilis have included 3 habeneros, 6 jalepenos, 3 tablespoons chipotle flakes, and ~12 thai hots. you can use what you like, but be aware that you are flavoring a massive pot of food, and that food is named after this ingredient. More variety is usually better here. Secret ingredient: love.
Directions and guidance on your path to chili:
Get out the saute pan first, and put 5 tbs of olive oil in the bottom, and crank the heat up, drop the (fuck its still frozen isn't it) chuck right in there. It is all one piece, and the oil is gonna splatter, but that is fine (reduce to medium heat when it starts splattering, and keep the lid on so you don't make a mess). Sear each side until you get that dark brown maillard reaction, and then move it to a cutting board, slice those sides off, put them in with the raw side down and put the big chunk back in, for a second round. You're going to keep cutting pieces off this meat until you've seared as much surface area as you possibly can, and then cut those flat pieces of steak into small bits. The hardest part is done. (Yeah, searing the meat like that is a fight, and takes a bunch of time, and you could just cut it all up to begin with if you had it thawed out before you started and the whole process would have been much less splattery and way easier, but you didn't, did you. You left it in the freezer until the very last minute! Thats on you, but its no big deal. I make the same mistake, every single time, which is why I have you covered with these instructions.)
Put the chopped seared meat back in the pan, with the carrots, and one of the onions (not the red one! save that for later). Mix it up, stirring with a wooden spoon to keep the meat from sticking to the bottom, and add a beer. Yeah, take a sip first. Make sure its good. Now that there is some liquid in the pot, you can scrape off any sticky bits of whatever with the wooden spoon very easilly. Do this, then add more beer, and the salt. The beer should cover the meat and veggies completely. Reduce the heat to as low as it goes, put the lid on, check the beer for quality control again, look up at what time it is, write that down if you're forgetful, and move on with your life.
1/2 hour later: check to make sure the liquid in the pan isn't escaping. It should be bubbling, but not all evaporating away. If it is, add more beer or the tomatoes if it is all gone.
2.5 hours after that: add the hottest peppers. Stir. Wash your hands before you rub your eyes! See, I just saved you a bad time right there. Don't say I never did anything for you.
Another hour passes: start boiling the beans in a huge stockpot. Boil them for 5 or 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to low and let them hydrate over the next hour or two. Add some of the more medium peppers.
1 more hours passes: Add the beets, the rest of the peppers. If you forgot about the beans, they're surely done now. strain them if you haven't already, and set aside.
1/2 hour passes: add the remaining onions.
1/2 hour passes: transfer everything to the stock pot. continue to cook on low heat, but add the tomatoes and beans. Add balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. The vinegar is more important than the oil, and you probably want at least a quarter cup here, but different vinegars are different so you have to decide. Leave it for 10 minutes at a time, coming back to stir regularly to make sure nothing sticks to the pan.
1/2 hour passes. Turn off the heat, and add the garlic. Let it sit for a few minutes, and serve it up. Freeze whatever you won't eat in the next couple weeks. Serve with a dolop of sour cream/whole fage yogurt, or some shredded cheddar, or some cilantro, or some guacamole, or sonnets. All of those things are for serving, none of them go into the chili when it is cooking. You can read a sonnet or two to the chili if you want, but only after at least 4 hours of braising.
Enjoy the adoration of your fans.
