Saturday - March 06, 2010

same old gripe

I got another Penzey’s spice catalog in the mail today. It’s a great company, they have really good spices, and they ship quickly. Living here in NJ they are my single source for dried chili peppers. But the one thing I just can not stand about their catalogs are their recipes. Oh, I’m sure most of them cook up fine, especially the baked goods. But their chili recipes are for the birds. I guess I have dead taste buds or something. I’ve tried several of them and they come out nearly flavorless. Try them again with triple the amount of spices and they start to become pretty good. Start, m’kay? At best they are bean stew with some meat and a hint of chili flavor. Why bother?

Their latest recipe uses 3 cans of beans, 2 pounds of meat, a big can of tomatoes, and 2 whole tablespoons of chili powder. Oh come on. Chili powder is not ground chili. It’s a mixture of that, and cumin, and garlic, and salt. It’s perhaps half ground chili at best. Recipe sent in by a resident of New Mexico. Shame shame shame.

So I made up a better recipe on the fly. And I only had the dregs of my pepper supply, since my last batch of heavy duty red used the better part of 2 pounds of dried chilis.
This is quick chili, unlike the slow cooked kind I usually makes that takes 6 - 8 hours. It uses ground chilis, which open up their flavor very quickly. This one will feed 4 hungry folks.

1 1/4 lb chuck steak, cut into little bits
2 smallish yellow onions, chopped fine but not minced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 can of kidney beans (she insisted. I prefer pintos)
1 large can of diced tomatoes

Cut up the steak and onions and garlic and put them in a wide bowl. Pour the juice from the canned tomatoes over them and let sit while you prepare the dried chilis.

2 ancho peppers
6 guajillo peppers
4 sanaam peppers (Indian hot peppers)
2 tien tsin peppers (Chinese hot peppers)
1 tsp Durkee ground red pepper (similar to cayenne)
3-4 tablespoons fresh ground cumin
1/3 cup Spice Classics Chili Powder (from the Dollar Store)

Tear the anchos and guajillos into medium bits, leaving out the seeds. Break the sanaam and tien tsin peppers up. Put it all in a Magic Bullet or other high speed chopper and grind it up. Add the other dry ingredients to the powdered chili and give them a whir too.

Splash a little “EVOO” in the bottom of a stock pot, heat it up, a lightly brown the meat, onions, and garlic. Reduce heat and add the spice mix. If you’re Drew, add the whole thing. If you like it quite hot, add about 2/3. If you want it rich with a mild amount of heat (most folks would still call this hot!) pour in about 1/2 the mix. Stir it around and coat the meat bits. Let it heat up for about a minute. Add the beans and the diced tomatoes. Stir, cover, and simmer over low heat for at least half an hour, until the beans soften, then remove the lid and let it reduce some. I didn’t have to add any liquid to get it to stew properly, but if you feel like it I guess you could toss in a bottle of dark beer. That will soften the flavors and add about 15 minutes to the stewing time. The meat will be a bit more tender too.

Made with half the ground spices this makes a full bodied chili with a heat level most folks can handle. It’s not bean stew. It’s a good balance between meat, beans, and chilis.

I added a flat teaspoon of the spice mix to my second serving and it boosted the flavor about 200%. Made it a good bit hotter too, but not so hot I had to get out the terry towel turban I keep around for eating Thai food.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/06/2010 at 08:45 PM   
Filed Under: • Fine-Dining •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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