Chili for a Crowd

I have posted chili recipes before, but they were for small batches to feed a single family. If you are cooking for a crowd, you need something that scales better! The recipe below can be doubled, tripled, etc. as necessary for large groups of people.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 2 cans pinto or red beans (or one of each)
• 1 large jar pace picante sauce
• Garlic Salt
• Chili Powder, Cumin, Oregano, Black Pepper

Directions

Brown Ground Beef with ½ teaspoon garlic salt. Add beans and picante sauce. Add 1 teaspoon chili powder and ½ teaspoon each of cumin, oregano, and black pepper.

Reposts: Chili

In honor of our annual church chili cookoff (congrats Rob!), here are the links to my personal chili recipes on this blog:

• Pleasant Springs Chili (this blog's recipe #1)
• 5-Alarm Chili (I made this last night at the cookoff)

Enjoy!

5-Alarm Chili

Long-Time readers of this blog (i.e. you members of the 4-month club) will remember that I have already posted a chili recipe here (in fact, it's recipe #1). That chili, while good, was rather middle-of-the-road. I've recently tried out a more bold recipe. The heat in this recipe comes from canned chipotle chiles packed in adobo sauce - a wickedly hot concoction which takes the normally milder flavor of jalepenos and kicks it up several notches. Another interesting ingredient is beer, although as a teetotaler I used a non-alcoholic variety (remember when cooking with alcohol, you can cook out a lot of it, but never all of it). If you don't like the malty essence that comes from cooking with beer, you can use pretty much any flavorful liquid that you like: cola, tomtato juice, broth - just make sure it dosen't get bitter or too salty when you cook with it.

Ingredients

• 3-4 pounds stew beef (I like chuck, but you can use round), cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 tablespoon canola or peanut oil
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
  
• 1 tablespoons chili powder (homemade would be best, see note on my previous post)
• 2-4 canned chipotle chiles, diced (more is hotter)
  
• 2-4 tablespoons of adobo sauce from the chipotles (again, more is hotter)
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin (freshly toasted and ground would be best)
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
  
• 1 jar (16 ounces) salsa, hot or medium (as you like it)
• 1 bottle (12 ounces) beer or ale (regular or non-alcoholic)
• 1 cup crushed tortilla chips

Directions

Toss the beef to coat with the oil and salt in a large bowl. Open the windows and/or turn on your range vent (this should produce a lot of smoke if done correctly). Working in small batches (about 1/4 of the meat in each batch), brown the outside of beef in a large dutch oven set on high heat (I use setting 9 out of 10 on my stove). As each batch finishes, remove to a clean bowl. When all the meat is browned, reduce heat to medium and saute the chiles, adobo sauce, cumin, and turmeric for 1-2 minutes, or until the mixture is very thick and brown (don't inhale the fumes - they are quite pungent!). Add salsa and beer and deglaze the pan while bringing mixture to a full simmer over medium-high heat. Add browned beef and any accumulated juices back to the pot. Add tortilla chips. Stir everything to combine. Put the lid on (or cover tightly with foil) and bake at 220 degrees for 3-4 hours (or 350 for 1-2 hours, but it won't be as tender. The best would be 185 for 8-10 hours!)

Pleasant Springs Chili

I made this for a church activity a couple of months ago (The 2^nd Annual Pleasant Springs Ward Chili & Pie Cook-Off), and this seemed like a good recipe to christen my blog with. I’ve always said that good chili is not simply cooked, it is crafted. I’ve been working on this recipe for years, and I think I’ve finally come up with my final version. Please note that there are no beans in this chili - I believe a good chili either has meat or beans, so if you like meat (and I do), you must leave the beans out!

Ingredients

2-4 lbs of stew beef (chuck shoulder, bottom round, etc.), cut into one-inch cubes
1 tablespoon peanut or vegetable oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt (or 1 teaspoon table salt)
2 jalapeño chilies, seeded and chopped with ribs removed (leave in the ribs if you like it hot)
1 jar (16 oz.) of Pace Thick and Chunky Salsa¹ (mild, medium, hot - your choice)
1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce
1 tablespoon chili powder²
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 cup crushed tortilla chips. (I like Tostitos Yellow Corn)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 200°. Toss cubed beef with oil and salt in a large bowl until evenly coated. Heat a large dutch oven over high heat. Working in small batches, evenly brown the beef on all sides³. As each batch finishes, move the browned beef to a clean bowl. Once all beef is browned and in the bowl, reduce heat to medium and add the jalapeño, sautéing until just starting to brown around the edges. Add the tomato sauce and salsa. Use a wooden spoon or spatula and deglaze the bottom (scrape any brown bits off the pot). Dump the beef (and any collected juices) back into the pot. Add the spices and the chips and stir thoroughly to combine. Bake in the oven for 3 hours or until the meat is as tender as you like it⁴.

Notes

1. Yes, I call for a jar of salsa. I like Pace and it works well, but that’s not to say others won’t work also. If you are offended by the thought of putting commercial salsa in “homemade” chili, then you can go out to the farms, pick the best produce (in season), and spend 30-60 minutes (depending on how fast you work) cleaning, chopping, and sweating your vegetables. I don’t have the time for that, and since thats exactly what Pace does down in San Antonio, I’ll let them do the work for me.
2. Homemade chili powder is best. I actually do make my own. You can find many recipes on the internet (Alton Brown’s is good) or you can come up with one on your own. I find a good ratio of spices to be 50% dried & ground chilies and 50% other stuff (cumin, oregano, garlic, paprika, etc.), however it is a matter of personal preference. It is best to toast whole spices in a dry skillet and cool completely before grinding in a spice grinder, coffee grinder, or blender.
3. The idea here is to brown the beef on the outside without cooking it through. The less cooked the inside of the beef is now, the more tender the finished chili will be. To accomplish this, you want the pot as hot as you can get it. Working in small batches is essential. If you crowd the pot (no space between each piece of meat or the meat not in a single layer), steam and juices will build up that cooks the meat without browning it - which will certainly toughen the meat and reduce the flavor and texture of the chili. Please note that if you do it correctly you will generate some smoke (from the high heat), so you should turn on your range vent and open a window.
4. If you don’t have 3 hours, you can do 2 hours at 250° or 1 hour at 350. The quicker you cook it, the tougher the meat will be (see #3 above).