We have a great chilli restaurant in my area, Hard Times Cafe. They serve 4 kinds of chilli, one being Cincinnati. That is the only 1 I don’t like. I believe its the cinnamon taste that is unusual for me.

YeeeHaww, it’s chili time !!!
Buddah, there are a ton of chili recipes here, I’m sure you’ll find one you like. We have made a cpl, enjoyed them all.

Buddah on 12/28/2007 at 2:02 pm said:

We have a great chilli restaurant in my area, Hard Times Cafe. They serve 4 kinds of chilli, one being Cincinnati. That is the only 1 I don’t like. I believe its the cinnamon taste that is unusual for me.

Buddah, I worked at Hard Times in Old Town Alexandria, VA, for a few months back in the mid-80’s - just long enough to learn their recipes to enjoy at home. I had to guess the spices because they came pre-blended and shipped in large sacks from a secret location. But, after 20 years of tinkering, my “Cincy chili” recipe is as good as theirs, if not better.

Cincinnati is the ideal hot dog chili, but also my favorite over pasta, as shown above. Nick, you mention the rather gross part of the process when you have “raw meat soup”. I was making 10 or 20 gallons of this stuff at a time - would break up the meat in the soup with a wire whip as long as my arm. I don’t know how my wife could stand the smell of me after I came home from 9 hours of slinging chili 6 nights a week.

One more tip for the Cincy lovers - the heavily vinegar-based hot sauces are best on top.

SM

SteveM on 12/28/2007 at 7:28 pm said:

Buddah, I worked at Hard Times in Old Town Alexandria, VA, for a few months back in the mid-80’s - just long enough to learn their recipes to enjoy at home. I had to guess the spices because they came pre-blended and shipped in large sacks from a secret location. But, after 20 years of tinkering, my “Cincy chili” recipe is as good as theirs, if not better.

Cincinnati is the ideal hot dog chili, but also my favorite over pasta, as shown above. Nick, you mention the rather gross part of the process when you have “raw meat soup”. I was making 10 or 20 gallons of this stuff at a time - would break up the meat in the soup with a wire whip as long as my arm. I don’t know how my wife could stand the smell of me after I came home from 9 hours of slinging chili 6 nights a week.

One more tip for the Cincy lovers - the heavily vinegar-based hot sauces are best on top.

SM

Nice

Cincinnati is a good dog chili, and the vinegar based hot sauces do accent them quite well, I mean as well as a “Hot Dog” could be accented!! That says a lot to me. Thanks!!

Nice work! I’ve enjoyed reading about your attempts to make Cincinnati chili. I too have been undertaking that. I just got back from the midwest with 16 cans of Skyline chili. I plan on using it to help compare to my attempts at perfecting a recipe for Cinicnnati chili with Skyline being my target.

You can take a look at my attempts here: http://www.beergeek.com/?cat=4

My plan for the next one is to tone way down on what I would call the savory spices and up some of the sweeter spices. Also, plan on adding sweetened chocolate (probably use Hershey bar as the sourness might help) and more mace.

Best of luck — I’ll keep watching!

Cheers,
Jeff

I’m with you Al- the only chili in the world I’ve found to be inedible is Cincy. Cinnamon is for toast, jerk, & pumpkin pies, NOT chili (my opinion). And, if’n I wanted spaghetti, I’d make spaghetti.

Each to the devil in their own way though

[…] Original post by Nick Lindauer […]

Jim- StepUpForCharity.org on 12/29/2007 at 6:47 am said:

I’m with you Al- the only chili in the world I’ve found to be inedible is Cincy. Cinnamon is for toast, jerk, & pumpkin pies, NOT chili (my opinion). And, if’n I wanted spaghetti, I’d make spaghetti.

Each to the devil in their own way though

Jim, I understand your not wanting to be swayed, but I offer the following story anyway, which traces the origin of Cincinnati chili. (excerpted from a longer story to be found at www.inmamaskitchen.com):

Cincinnati Chili is unique and quite different from its western cousin. In fact, about the only relation it has are the meat, cumin and chili powder it contains. After that, the recipe takes an interesting twist. Cincinnati style chili is also unique to the area (you can’t find it too far outside the greater Cincinnati, area, although I did hear that one company was considering opening a store in Phoenix, Arizona) and unique in the way it came to be.

In 1922, a Macedonian immigrant, Tom Athanas Kiradjieff settled in Cincinnati with his brother, John. He opened a hot dog stand, which he named ‘Empress’ and sold hot dogs and Greek food. He did a lousy business because, at that time, the large majority of the inhabitants were of German heritage, and nobody in the area knew anything about Greek food, and weren’t thrilled by it.

Tom was not to be defeated. He took a Greek stew, maintained the Mediterranean spices of Cinnamon and Cloves, changed the meat to ground beef, and added other spices, such as chili powder, to the mix and began to sell this stew over spaghetti and called it ‘Chili.’ It proved to be a successful experiment.

SM

SteveM on 12/30/2007 at 6:07 pm said:

Jim, I understand your not wanting to be swayed, but I offer the following story anyway, which traces the origin of Cincinnati chili. (excerpted from a longer story to be found at www.inmamaskitchen.com):

Cincinnati Chili is unique and quite different from its western cousin. In fact, about the only relation it has are the meat, cumin and chili powder it contains. After that, the recipe takes an interesting twist. Cincinnati style chili is also unique to the area (you can’t find it too far outside the greater Cincinnati, area, although I did hear that one company was considering opening a store in Phoenix, Arizona) and unique in the way it came to be.

In 1922, a Macedonian immigrant, Tom Athanas Kiradjieff settled in Cincinnati with his brother, John. He opened a hot dog stand, which he named ‘Empress’ and sold hot dogs and Greek food. He did a lousy business because, at that time, the large majority of the inhabitants were of German heritage, and nobody in the area knew anything about Greek food, and weren’t thrilled by it.

Tom was not to be defeated. He took a Greek stew, maintained the Mediterranean spices of Cinnamon and Cloves, changed the meat to ground beef, and added other spices, such as chili powder, to the mix and began to sell this stew over spaghetti and called it ‘Chili.’ It proved to be a successful experiment.

SM

You are just full of facts….. i love it keep them coming

A big thank you to Nick for posting his trials (and errors) on this blog. It has helped me immensely in tweaking my Cinci ctyle Chili. To a certain extent , this process could go on forever (thank God!) I love using the info to help tweak my own recipe. But I go back to Cicni Chili Round 1 to bring up an important part of the recipe brouht up but never fully answered to my satifaction, And that is the issue of CHEESE! One blogger asked several times about the make-up, specifically the ULTRA FINE shredding of the cheese and where to find this type of cheese. To me, while I’m sure it hase something to do with the fine grate of the cheese, you can find very fine grated cheese’s in your supermarket. To me the problem with them, unlike cheese on a real bowl of say, Skyline chili, is they MELT TO MUCH!. To me a great 3-way is digging thru the unmelted, finley shredded cheese, and wrapping that along with the chili and spagahetti arond your fork. The texture of the unmelted, finely shredded cheddar and ? cheese in your mouth with the chili and pasta is a key part to Cinci style 3-way chili. And even if you let that 3-way stand for 15-20 mins in front of you while you eat it all, that cheese for the most part doesn’t melt down into the pasta. Somewhat but not alot. My question is do they process that cheese with something that helps it hold up to the melting, or is it a different kind of cheese, like the mexican queso fresco that is a crumbling cheese that is put on alot of authentic mexican tacos and doesnt melt like cheese on an American style taco. The finely shreddded cheese is a deffinent part of the TEXTURE of Cinci chili and I have a tough find finding one that doesnt melt after 5 mins on the plate and eating

Having grown up on Cincy Chili, I can state that it becomes an addiction. I now use ultra lean turkey rather than beef when making my own. It browns up really well and stays grainy when you brown it using a half cup of water per pound of meat. Using this method, you avoid the meat soup. The meat does not taste browned, which would destroy the unique Cincy taste. Also, you can avoid salt and eat the hell out of it because there is almost no fat. I have to admit that I have been cheating by using Gold Star Chili’s packaged mix. It is low sodium and fat free. Tastes the same, too.

I’ve enjoyed reading about your Cincinnati Chili attempts. As a native Cininnatian, I think you have done a good job. There are many different Chili parlors around the city and no two are exactly the same. Skyline seems to be the city’s favorite (and you can order cans online) but many of the small parlors have great chili as well. One thing I will tell you based on your pictures, is you are not putting enough cheese on top, other than that I think you did a good job.

Also Skyline has its own hot sauce which is excellent. It is more vinegar based and is somewhat similar to original Tabasco with more flavor.

Thanks for the recipe ideas. The only other place in North America devoted to the same Greek chile is Winnipeg, Canada. Here the use is on top of homemade heavily spiced burgers or fries. Locations have been here since the late 50’s.