It’s actually a little chilly here in Texas and that means it’s time to make some chili! After going through all the Christmas goodies we received, I decided that I wanted to try another Cincinnati Chili recipe . The feedback from the previous two recipes (Round 1 & Round 2) was terrific and I decided to use a combination of all the recipes left in the comments and some of the tips as well. The resulting recipe goes like this:

Ingredients:
• 1 med. white onion - chopped
• 6 cloves garlic - minced
• 2.5lbs ground beef
• 1 can (14oz.) low sodium beef broth
• 1 can (6oz.) tomato paste
• 1 can (8oz.) tomato sauce
• 1 oz. unsweetened chocolate
• 1 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ground allspice
• 1 tsp. ground tumeric
• 1 tsp. ground coriander
• 1 tsp. ground cardamon
• 2 bay leaves (Turkish)
• 2 tsp. ground cumin
• 6 tbsps. chili powder
• 2 tbsps. worchestershire
• 4 cups water
• Salt (to taste)

Raw meat soup: not looking good yet.

Directions: Begin to bring water to a boil. When just warm, start adding the beef. Crumble with your hands to a fine consistency. Bring meat soup to a boil and then reduce heat to medium low.

Add everything else to the pot

Add remaining ingredients - garlic, onions and all of the seasonings and stir. Let simmer for 3-4 hours on med low heat.

After stirring in everything, looking better - smelling great.

After 4 hours of simmering

After cooking for a few hours, you end up with a house that smells delicious and a pot of chili that looks like the Exxon Valdez crash landed in it. But according to those that responded to the first few recipes I posted, that’s how it’s supposed to look like. My cardiologist is going to yell at me for this one.

On spaghetti

Close up

Overall - This isn’t your typical chili and it’s definitely an acquired taste - but I like it. It’s like a funky meat sauce for your noodles. I think with this version I may have put in too much unsweetened chocolate - something wasn’t quite right. It was delicious, but not what I remembered from recipe2 Round 1 & Round 2. Oh well, back to the chili drawing board…

I decided to test out a few tricks to my standard chili recipe this weekend so that I could give a great recipe and how to guide to a friend of mine that will be cooking in a chili cook-off next weekend. And since the wife is out of town this weekend, it’s a good time to have the kitchen all to myself.

Ingredients:
6 strips of bacon - diced
4lbs of Beef Round Bottom Roast
1 can of Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes
1 can of tomato sauce
1 can of chipotle sauce
1 can of chipotle peppers in abobo - seeded and diced
1 habanero peppers- seeded & diced
1 large white onion - diced
1 head of garlic - diced
2 tablespoons of ground cumin
2 tablespoons of chili powder
salt to taste

Step 1:
To start this chili right, freeze the beef round. That’s right - toss it in the freezer for 2-3 hours until it’s slightly frozen. Then remove and slice into 1/4 inch slices. Lay the slices of beef out on a tray and return them to the freezer. After another 1-2 hours, remove them and dice into 1/4 inch cubes. This method makes for more uniform cubes of beef, which creates a better texture when all is said and done.

Step 2:
Dice the bacon and cook until crispy. Preserve the bacon grease & set aside the diced bits of bacon to garnish the chili with later. Sauté the diced onion, garlic and habaneros in the bacon grease until soft. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Step 3:
Once the bacon and veggies has been cooked, you can begin cooking the cubed beef in small batches. As you work through the batches of meat, preserve all of the juices.

Step 4:
Once the beef has been cooked, combine all of the ingredients (beef, onions, garlic, habaneros, canned sauces, seasonings, remaining juices ect…) into the pot - stirring with each addition to make sure it all gets spread around evenly. Reduce the heat to low and allow to simmer for another 2-3 hours or until the beef is tender to the point of melting in your mouth.

Final thoughts: Cubing the beef into 1/4 cubes definately helps the consistency and even though the measurements for the ingredients are similar to those that I’ve used before, the flavor seems to pop a bit more and I think that’s due to the smaller cuts of meat - allowing more sauce & seasonings into each bite. A few tweaks to be made - needs more heat, so next time around I’ll add 2-3 habaneros. Other then that, this recipe will be going into the chili competition - we’ll see if it wins!

On an especially rainy Sunday, I braved a downpour (7.5 inches in Manhattan - the most rain since 1892!) to run up to the local Whole Foods market and grab the necessities for a good bowl of chili. I didn’t take a recipe with me, nor a list of items to pick up - I simply knew that I couldn’t buy anymore then what I could carry whilst trying to keep an umbrella over my head during the walk back to our apartment. Afterall, the food would have to stay sort of dry, right?

Anyways, I knew I wanted to make a big batch of chili, so that Laura & I wouldn’t have to cook much during the week, hence the 5lbs of meat that went into this chili.

Ingredients:
3lbs Beef Rib Roast - cubed
2lbs Ground Pork
1 bottle Dos Equis Amber Beer
1 While Onion - diced
6 cloves garlic - minced
1 16oz can of diced tomatoes
1 8oz can of tomato paste
1 package bacon (for the grease & to use as a garnish)
1/2 Jar of Art of Chipotle Gourmet Chipotle Paste
2 tbsp ground cumin
2 tbsp chili powder
salt & pepper to taste
(Total cost of ingredients: $23 - but I did have the garlic, chipotle paste and spices on hand)

The Final Product: Nick’s Nor’easter Chili

More images & how to make cooking steps below the fold (more…)

Okay, I admit it, Paula Deen is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Everytime I watch her show, I feel my cholesterol level going up. I seldom make anything that Paula cooks but a recent episode caught my eye and I decided to take a step outside of my chili making comfort zone and go with a White Bean Chili. One thing to note is that on the show they used diced jalapeno peppers (as did I) but the recipe on FoodTV (seen below) called for green chiles.

White Bean Chili
Recipe courtesy Paula Deen

1 pound dried navy beans
5 cups chicken stock
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
1 tablespoon minced garlic
3/4 cup diced onion
1 1/2 cups chopped green chiles (fresh or canned)
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, finely chopped
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 to 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
Pinch red pepper flakes
1/2 bunch cilantro leaves, chopped

Rinse beans well, cover with cool water, and soak for 2 hours. Drain. Place beans in large pot with chicken stock and bring to a boil over high heat. In a saucepan, heat butter over medium heat. Add garlic, onion, and chiles and saute for 5 minutes. Add chile mixture to pot with beans. Add chicken, cumin, oregano, pepper, white pepper, red pepper flakes, and cilantro. Lower heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, for approximately 1 1/2 hours. Serve with cornbread, if desired.

This is a simple recipe that takes sometime to prepare, but start the beans in the AM and by early afternoon you’ll be ready to dig in. I prepared all the jalapenos, onions and chicken while the beans were soaking so it made assembly a breeze.

Diced Grilled Chicken
Saute the jalapenos, garlic and onions with butter.
Combine beans, chicken, peppers, onions and garlic
Looks better after adding the cilantro and seasonings
After simmering for 2 hours

Naked chili - ready to eat
All dressed up Honestly, this chili is great for those health consicious eaters out there - but it’s missing something for me. I think it needs more jalapeno peppers - it certainly wasn’t hot after all the simmering. But man did it smell good while it was cooking. In fact, one of our neighbors came by and asked what we were cooking because it was smelling so good in the hallway. Next time I’ll start with a whole chicken and make the chicken stock from scratch - the chicken breasts were a bit too dry and the stock lacked a bit more flavor then I was expecting. Overall, still very tasty - next time I’ll just make up my own recipe

While in California, I took advantage of the in-laws extra large kitchen and spent one afternoon making some of my Chipotle Garlic Chili (or a version close to that). I had to change up the ingredients a bit given that one cannot find Fatalii powder in a regular grocery store.

California Version Ingredients:
1 can chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (seed chipotles, keep adobo)
1 16oz. can diced tomatoes
1 6oz. can of tomato sauce
4lbs beef chuck (Chopped into 1 inch cubes)
1 head elephant garlic (diced)
1 large white onion (diced)
10 strips of bacon
Cayenne powder
Cumin powder
Chili powder
Chipotle powder

The steps involved are simple:
1. Cook the bacon in a large pot (this is a one pot chili) until crisp. Leave bacon fat in pan and set bacon aside for addition later. While the bacon is cooking, prepare the vegetables (dice the onions and garlic).
2. Once the bacon has been removed from the pan, add the onions and garlic - sauté until golden brown. While those are cooking, chop your meat.
3. Add all the meat to the pan and season with salt and pepper. Cook until the meat is no longer red - about 20-30 minutes.
4. Once the meat has been cooked add all the wet ingredients - the chipotles, adobo sauce, and tomatoes. Stir in seasonings as well (to taste - go heavy on the chipotle powder).
5. That’s it - let the mixture simmer until the meat melts in your mouth - about 2-3 hours. Remember to stir occasionally and enjoy!

California Chipotle Garlic Chili - Cooking

California Chipotle Garlic Chili - Finished & Naked

California Chipotle Garlic Chili - All Dressed Up

The first weekend back in town, the wife and I wanted to cook something up that would get us through the busy week ahead so I volunteered to make yet another batch of my Chipotle Garlic Chili. Since the wife does not like the bigger chunks of beef that I used in the California version, I went with a Tri Tip Roast and cube the meat into 1/2 cubes - very time consuming but it made for a nice and even textured chili.

NY Version Ingredients:
1 can chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (seed chipotles, keep adobo)
1 16oz. can diced tomatoes
2 cans (6 oz) of Chipotle Sauce
1 6oz can tomato paste
4lbs beef tip roast (Chopped into 1/2 inch cubes)
1 head elephant garlic (diced)
1 large white onion (diced)
10 strips of bacon
Cayenne powder
Cumin powder
Chili powder
Chipotle powder

NY Chipotle Garlic Chili - Cooking

NY Chipotle Garlic Chili - All Dressed Up

Which one was better? Hard to say, even though the basic ingredients are the same these chili’s were pretty different. For me, I liked the California version a bit more - bigger chunks of meat and the bacon used initially was of higher quality (giving the chili a better flavor). But truth be told, we polished off the NY chili quickly - one batch lasted us an entire week with just enough left over for a Saturday Chili Cheese Omelet. And for garnish, don’t forget the chopped green onions - they really work well with this pepper heavy chili.

This chili is one of those truly just thrown together chili’s - no rhyme or reason to the ingredients, except I had some laying around and simply grabbed others off the shelf at the market. No measurements were used either - just threw it all in a pot and let it go. Turned out fantastic!

Ingredients:
3 Jalapenos - seeded and diced
3 Dried Ancho Chiles - hydrated
1 head of Garlic (roasted)
2lbs. lean ground beef
1lb. ground pork
1/2 green bell pepper - finely chopped
1/2 red bell pepper - finely chopped
1 cup beef broth
1 8 oz. can of tomato sauce
1 8oz. can of diced tomatoes
1 8oz. can of whole kernel corn
1 8oz. can of black beans
1 8oz. can of pinto beans
Salt & pepper to taste

Step 1: Roast the Garlic

Toss the entire head of garlic into the oven, wrapped in foil for 20 minutes (300 degrees). Once roasted, combine with re-hydrated ancho chiles & tomato sauce in a blender until pureed. Save for later.

Step 2: Sauté Vegetables

Sauté the chopped vegetables in the same pan used to cook the meats. The ground meat was cooked and then set aside for draining.

Step 3: Combine Meat & Sauce

Once the veggies are sautéed, add in the meat, tomato garlic sauce, beef broth & diced tomatoes.

Step 4: Add Beans & Corn

After allowing the mix to cook for about 45 minutes to an hour, add in the beans & corn (all drained) and cook for another 45 minutes or more.

Step 5: Enjoy!

I served this chili atop a freshly baked potato with a little bit of cheese. I ended up having to add a good bit of hot sauce to the mix as it wasn’t nearly hot enough for me, but the wife loved it. Perfect for cooking up on a Sunday and enjoying it for the rest of the week.

Sent in by a reader, this recipe will be soon entered into a cook-off or two. Try it out, tweak it, make it your own and let us know what you think!

Ingredients:
1 Green Bell Pepper
1 Red Bell Pepper
1 Orange Bell Pepper
1 Yellow Bell Pepper
3 Green Jalapeño
3 Red Jalapeño
2 or 3 Habaneros (depending on what you think)
1 Red Garden Salsa Pepper
1 Green Garden Salsa Pepper
1 Can Chipotles in Adobo (you’ll only use about 3 outta here)
2 Med sized heads of garlic
2-3lbs Beef Chuck
1 Med sized Onion
3-4 Cans Chili Beans in Sauce
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Crushed Red Pepper
Chili Powder
1 Bottle Tabasco Bloody Mary Mix
Small amount of butter
Small amount of Olive oil

First we’re going to take the bell peppers and roast them. Cover them in a bit of olive oil and hold them over a small flame till the outside skin is a good black color but don’t completely char it. After you have them roasted we’re gonna peel the outside black skin off, you might want to wait a bit they may still be hot. Once they are peeled set them of to the side till later. Now cut up your meat into small chunks put them in a large pan and begin to cook them. Season them to taste with your Garlic, Onion, Chili powders, and your Red peppers. You’ll want to cook them meat for awhile to make sure it is good and tender. You’ll also want to add some of the bloody mary mix to the meat later on so it can take of the flavor and also to give you something of a sauce to sauté the rest of your ingredients in. So while that’s cooking you can get your garlic ready, we’re going to roast it.

Take the heads and cut the very top of them off. Not too much to waste just enough so that a few of the cloves are exposed. Take a sheet of aluminum foil place the heads in the center and place a small amount of mutter on the top of each clove alone with some oil drizzled over the top of each. Wrap them up in the foil so nothing will leak out and put them in oven for about 30mins at about 400 degrees the cloves should be nice and soft when done.

While everything else is cooking you can get your peppers ready. I wore plastic gloves through the whole thing just to be safe. You’ll wanna dice up all your peppers including your bells, i got read of all the seeds so there is none in the chili. Throw all the diced up peppers in a bowl and dice up your onion and throw it in there. Once your garlic is done remove all the cloves and dice them up and throw them in too. Once you think your meat is tender enough strain the meat while you take it out cause you will use this to sauté the veggie’s in. Throw in the veggie’s and cook them till they are nice and soft you can add more blood mary mix to keep everything sautéing nicely. Once everything is all ready throw it all into a crock-pot and then add the Chili beans and let it cook on low for awhile. Do your final tasting and doctoring with your chili powder and it will be ready to go.

Surprisingly I didn’t find the chili overly hot but it did have nice warmth to it. Hope you like it.

Round 2 of Cincinnati Chili making, just over a year since we last attempted Cincinnati Chili. This time around I made quite a few changes and even brought in my ace in the hole: the slow cooker. To get the right balance of ingredients this time around, I consulted several recipe books, blogs and magazines. You’d be amazed at the variety of Cincinnati Chili recipes there are in the world - all with the same goal in mind. So I took the best of the best this time around and concocted a recipe that is all my own.

Ingredients:
• 1 med. white onion - chopped
• 4 cloves garlic - minced
• 2.5lbs ground beef
• 2 cans (14oz.) low sodium beef broth
• 2 cans (8oz.) tomato sauce
• .5oz. unsweetened chocolate
• 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground allspice
• 1/2 tsp. ground tumeric
• 1/2 tsp. ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp. ground cardamon
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
• 6 tbsps. chili powder
• 2 tbsps. BBQ sauce
• 2 tbsps. cider vinegar
• 2 tbsps. worchestershite
• 1 cup water
• Salt (to taste)

Directions:

Step 1: Onions & Garlic

In a large pan, saute garlic and onions until soft. While the onions are cooking, start getting the dry spices together.

Step 2: Broth

Once onions are soft, add broth (plus one can of water) to the pan.

Step 3: Add Beef

Add the beef (yeah, not pretty - again, at this point I thought about jumping ship on this recipe.) and the tomato sauce & seasonings. Bring to a boil.

Step 4: Transfer & Cook

Transfer the chili to your slow cooker and allow to cook on low for 6-8 hours. Leave the house if you can to avoid having to smell the goodness that is this chili cooking. Taste test towards the end of the cooking time and add more seasonings as necessary.

Step 5: Eat & Enjoy

Serve Cincinnati Chili over spaghetti noodle, along with shredded cheddar cheese, onions and sour cream if you wish. This recipe will feed 2 people for 4-5 days (lunches & dinners)

Again, like the first attempt, I consider this recipe a success. The ground cloves and cardamon have a strong flavor so go easy at first. I added a bunch of salt towards the end as well. Excellent stuff! It’s much better after cooling in the refridgerator and re-heating the next day, it allows the flavors to blend a bit more and you can easily remove that layer of grease. From start to finish it took 45 minutes to prepare and 7.5 hours to slow cook.

I created this Round-Up Chili recipe in honor of the Red Bluff 21st Annual Chili Cookoff - you see, I’m from Red Bluff, a town that has more cows then people. It’s very hard to describe Red Bluff to anyone here in NYC - but that cow to people ratio is the best I’ve found so far. I guess you could say I’m a country boy at heart. So anyways, the chili-cookoff is held the weekend before the Red Bluff Round Up and 100’s of chili mongers fill the streets of downtown Red Bluff. I used to go downtown first thing in the morning and stay till the last chili competitor was gone - tooling around the streets and tasting everything that was handed to me. This is where I learned to cook chili - you see my Grandmother taught me to bake, my Grandfather taught my to BBQ and my Mom taught me to burn - but the Red Bluff Chili Competition taught me chili. And it’s there I learned that chili is whatever you make it, so in honor of the upcoming competition, I ’rounded’ up all the ingredients I could find and created Round Up Chili.

Ingredients:
1 lb Ground Pork
2 lbs Ground Beef
3 Jalapeno Peppers - seeded & diced
1 Red Bell Pepper - seeded & diced
1/2 Large White Onion - diced
1 Head of Garlic - coarsely diced
1 Can Mexican Beans
1 Can Black Beans
2 Cans Tomato Paste
1 Can Tomato Sauce
3-4 Tablespoons Chili Seasoning
1 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
Fresh Ground Pepper to taste
Makers Mark - Drink while you cook

Step 1 - Brown the meat and prep ingredients

Brown the Pork & Beef and while those are cooking, chop all your veggies and open all the cans - this will make the final steps much quicker. Drink.

Step 2: Saute Onions & Garlic

Once the meat is cooked, remove from pan and drain. Add your onions & garlic to the pot and saute in the little bit of leftover grease from the meats. Drink.

Step 3: Combine

Once the onions are clear, toss the meat back in along with all the remaining ingredients. Mix well and taste test - you may want more heat. Drink.

Step 4: Simmer

Cover (to minimize splashes) and simmer the chili for about 1 hour or until the red bell peppers are soft. Drink.

Step 5: Enjoy!

Eat! Top with sour cream, jalapenos and Fritos if you have them. This chili really picks up flavor the next day as well.

Drink. Fart. Pass out.

It’s no secret that I love a good chili. Hell, I love bad chili - it’s still chili afterall. So naturally, one of my finds at the 2006 Fiery Foods show was Cin Chili. Now, before you think exactly what I thought, it’s not a Cincinnati Chili Mix. In fact, I think I rather insulted Cindy herself with that question. But she was gracious enough to explain to me that the name is a play on her name (Cindy) and has nothing to do with Ohio.

Cindy Reed is a two time winner of the CASI International Chili Championship, so she certainly has the qualifications to back her up. After 2 weeks of being home here in NYC (sans chili) I cracked and decided to take Cin Chili Mix for a test run.

Ingredients: Chili powder, onion, garlic, salt, cumin, silcon dioxide (anticaking agent), less than 1% monosodium glutamate.

The instructions are simple: (from the package) Brown 2lbs ground beef (or your favorite meat). Drain. Add 14oz. of beef broth. Add 8 oz. can of no salt tomato sauce. Bring to a full boil. Add Cin Chili Mix. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. For more heat add cayenne pepper. Serve with cheese, onions, beans, crackers if desired.

So here we go:

Small picture of beef, cause it’s just not that pretty rare.

After the beef has browned, drain and then stir in the beef broth and tomato sauce.

Add Cin Chili Mix - stir and let the chili simmer for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, we now have a nice looking bowl of red.

Mmmm Cin Chili

Overall: This is a great mix to cook up chili within an hour. All together it took me less then 45 minutes, although I let it cook a bit longer then recommended (excess liquid). It’s certainly not hot for an average chilehead, so I recommend adding the cayenne pepper or even some fresh - though those are hard to find in Manhattan in March. This chili is also a chili that tastes much better the next day. One package prepared accroding to the directions feeds about 4-5 hungry people.

Tags: chili