Chili

UPDATE 5/22/2012: Added information about the cooking time, garlic amount, and a Southern Comfort tip.

I attended an informal chili competition about 8 years ago and was amazed at the variety of tastes and ingredients that each dish had. There were simple tweaks like different types of peppers, or "weird" things like cinnamon and beer.


Several years later I wanted to make a healthy random dish for dinner, so I decided on a vegetarian chili. It was horrible, but the seed was planted. To cook good chili, all you need is a place to start... a base.

So I tweaked it. Added ingredients, changed spices, and found other recipes to borrow ideas from. I've ended up with a dish that I love.

That is were the facts end. Everyone has their own interpretation of "good," and everyone likes different features in a chili: sweetness, saltiness, spicy, whatever. I've been told my chili lacks any specific feature. So I figure that means my chili is just good overall :)

My point is there is a huge amount of variance in flavors, and just as much variance in personal preference. You may not like a chili someone else likes, or vice versa.

Outside of subjectivity, another issue is with cooking variables. If I cook chili for personal use I'll portion it out in 2-cup containers and throw it in the freezer. When I reheat it it is a bit like cooking it a little more. For a competition I may cook it in the morning and serve it immediately. It is a small difference but it can affect the flavor.

Before I share my recipe... here is a fun time-lapse video I took of myself making my chili. It runs about 2 minutes and covers about an hour of cutting and cooking.

Recipe

My recipe is mostly based on two different recipes:

• Food.com - The Best Chili You Will Ever Eat
• Serious Eats - The Best Chili Ever

I had been closing in on the first recipe so I started using that as my base. I found the second recipe when I decided to add more of a umami (savory) flavor component to my dish. So now I sort of merge the two and make a few tweaks for easier cooking.

Ingredients

• 3 smallish sweet onions
• 6 cloves of garlic (or about 3-4 tsp of Garlic World minced garlic)
• 2 jalapeño peppers
• 2 anaheim peppers
• 1.5 lbs ground turkey
• 1 lbs ground sirloin
• 1.5 Tbsp Mexican oregano
• 3/8 tsp star anise (ground)
• 1 tsp ground corriander
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp cocoa powder
• 2 Tbsp cumin
• 2 Tbsp Penzeys Chili 9000
• 3 Tbsp Penzeys Med-Hot Chili Powder
• 3-4 anchovy filets (cut into small pieces or blended with liquid in a blender)
• 2 Tbsp soy sauce
• 15 oz beef broth
• 6 oz tomato paste
• 30 oz diced tomato
• 12 oz stout (I like Bells Kalamazoo Stout, or any imperial stout)
• 4-6 oz Maker's Mark (or really any bourbon)
• TIP: if you like the recipe, next time use Southern Comfort instead of bourbon)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 30 oz kidney beans
• 30 oz black beans

Process

I start by dicing the onions and fresh peppers. I saute that with the oil, garlic and Mexican oregano until the onions are translucent.

Onions, peppers, garlic, Mexican oregano

Tip: Some people saute onions with ground beef. But if you drain the fat I assume you may lose a little of the onion flavor. And reading about Mexican oregano, Penzeys recommends adding it at the beginning of cooking (like when sauteing onions) so the flavors have time to meld.

Meanwhile, brown your meat.

After that add everything else. It doesn't matter much but I start by adding liquids so that the heat drops a bit, then spices, then solids... except for the black beans. I find that the black beans usually don't need to cook at all, so I add them at the end.

Simmer for about 90 minutes.

For the anchovies, I cut then into thin pieces with a fork and dump them in. They are very tender and I've been told they just "dissolve". The blender method is used in the second recipe above, where they are blended with reconstituted dried peppers.

The finished product

I love eating chili for lunch, because I can cook up a 5-quart batch and get about 10 lunch-sized portions. It freezes and reheats well, is high in fiber, and overall is kinda healthy(ish) (see what I did there).

Ten lunches ready to go...

Volume-Boosting

If I am just making lunch chili, I'll sometimes throw in random stuff that I have lying around, or a little extra of certain things. Lately I've been adding a little extra meat (about 3-lbs total), a 15oz can of Great Northern beans, maybe some corn, and yesterday I added a 15oz can of soy beans (higher protein than other beans). Adding things like that doesn't have a huge impact on the flavor, and lets you get a little more food from your cooking.

Another thing you can do is what I call "Kitchen Sink Chili". If you have leftover or old food you don't need, throw it in! While you can do this with anything, I stick to things that work well in chili. Leftover or unappetizing salsa and ready-to-expire canned corn are two good examples.

Volcano Chicken!

I am not a Thai food expert, but I do love to eat it. Milwaukee has a had, in my opinion, some great Thai restaurant options:

• The King & I (and, formerly, The King & I  II)
• Mekong Café
• Bang Thai Cuisine (now closed)

My favorite dish by far is Volcano Chicken. It features small pieces of fried chicken breast, covered in a sizzling sauce that is both spicy and sweet and is absolutely delicious. I could eat this food once a week (and I practically did for a year or two when I was in college).

With both King & I II and Bang Thai closing, my consumption of Volcano Chicken has had a serious dip. So I thought I'd search for a recipe. And what do you know... another local put one together on his blog: Volcano Chicken - Milwaukee Style.

I put a different spin on it to make it a bit healthier and easier to cook. Specifically I...

• Didn't use cabbage. 
• Used pre-cut carrots
• Used baked chicken; cooked using my previous post

So basically, I made volcano sauce and put it over chicken and carrots. I also added a little broccoli on the side, because that's how I roll.

Here is the sauce ingredients, mostly from the blog's recipe but with a few tweaks of my own:

The sauce just after adding all the ingredients

• 4 cloves of garlic, minced (I used minced garlic in a jar from Spice World... because it's easy)
• 1 cup of water
• 1/2 cup of chicken stock
• 1 tbsp palm sugar
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 3 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tbsp of honey
• 1 tbsp tamarind concentrate
• 1 tsp chili garlic sauce (I didn't use this but only because I forgot to buy it)
• 1 Thai chili, chopped (I used two and tried to remove a lot of the seeds)
• I also added some red pepper flakes. I like it hot.

And here are the instructions:

To your sauce pan, add all of the sauce ingredients, bringing to a boil. Once boiled, reduce the heat and cook until it reduces, approximately 25 minutes. Once reduced, remove from the heat and let cool. Now keep in mind this has a good heat to it, not too spicy. If you want more spice, I suggest adding chili flakes, or chili flakes that you can buy in the Asian marts that are in a oil.

For my tastes, this made enough sauce for about two servings; it reduces quite a bit. Use your best judgement for how far to reduce the sauce. From eating it so much in the past, I am quite familiar with the sauce so I shot for a familiar consistency. I'd say it was a little thinner than honey and took a little longer than 25 minutes.

Here is the sauce after I decided it was done. You can see how thick it gets.

I also followed the recipe's instructions for doing a quick sear on the carrots. What he says is:

Next get your large skillet heated on a high heat. Add the olive oil, and toss in the cabbage and carrots. The goal is to let this mixture sear, and become somewhat blackened, but not burnt. The high heat brings out the sweetness of these vegetables, and builds a really killer flavor. Once seared on one side, approximately a few minutes, flip, and get a sear going on the other side.

Chicken ready for sauce.

That leaves the chicken, which was already cooked so was a piece of cake. I took one or two breasts, cut them into smallish pieces, and then just plated it and added the carrots and sauce.

And that's it! This was very tasty... the magic is in the sauce reduction. It gets good and muddled and the 30+ minutes of heating brings out a great flavor.

The finished product

Chicken Breast... Easy and Juicy

I consider this recipe to be sort of a foundation for my meals. It is both an easy entrée and is also used in a lot of other dishes I cook for dinner. It is great fresh and used a day or two later in another entrée. They key is this cooking method, described below.

The end result... not very attractive, but juicy and tasty.

In the past I've had mixed results with preparation. I've gone through a lot of marinade (such as those from Lawry's or Newman's). That is a quick way to put some flavor into the meat, but then I'd throw it on the grill, cranked up the heat a little too much, and burned the outside and dried out the inside.

Instead, I found a much easier way to cook the chicken and with zero prep. I found it at this link... it is the "baking in parchment" method.

All you do is:

• Get some chicken breast (frozen or fresh)
• Put it on some aluminum foil (I use two sheets because one will occaisionally leak)
• Add any kind of spice or liquid you want
• Tent the foil by crimping the top and sides. Leave some open air in the inside/top.
• Bake on 425 for about 25-45 minutes (depending on if it is frozen or fresh).

Easy peasy lemon squeezey!

Three wrapped up chicken breasts, ready to go.

What It's Good For
This preparation is good for a main course, but it is also great for adding to other dishes such as:

• Salads
• Chicken fried rice 
• Stir fry
• Quesadillas
• Or literally anything that requires chicken 

I'll typically bake three breasts at a time, eat one that night as a meal, and then use the others for any other random dish. When you use it for another dish a day or two later, you save a lot of time because the chicken is already cooked to perfection.

My Preparation Details

• I douse the chicken with random spices like Cajun seasoning or Mural of Flavor from Penzeys. 
• If I think I'll be using one of the breasts in another dish, I'll just bake it plain. 
• The key with the foil "tenting" is to do a good job of sealing it up. You want the steam and juices to stay inside.
• I use a rimmed baking sheet, in case anything leaks.
• Baking at 425 seems to be the magic number. 
• Timing will vary but I found fresh to take about 25 minutes and frozen to take 40-45 minutes.
• Standard advice is to cook to 165 F.

I found a USDA chicken preparation fact sheet if you are really bored... being an analytical person, it is an interesting read.