Edition #2 Can a Yankee boy make Texas Chili?

I always thought the chili I grew up with was chili.  Everybody's chili.  Ground beef, chili powder, tomato, onions, beans.  That was it whether your mother made it or Hormel made it.  Once I started to cook professionally, I began to see more variations like cubed meat instead of ground, or both.  Different critters were used for meat like chicken, venison, or none at all.  Chili powder was replaced by a myriad of fresh and dried chiles and tolerance to capsacin had to rise along with Scoville units.




Then a few years back I read an article in Saveur Magazine about Cajun musician Marcia Ball and her partner Gordon Fowler.  The article included Gordon's  recipe for Texas chili which admonished "Never put beans in the chili".  That got me going.  I needed to know more about what Texans refer to as a bowl of red.  I started reading recipes with dozens of variations but one common basic structure: Meat and Chile Peppers!  Seemed simple enough.  I constructed a recipe using two different cuts of meat, Chuck and Bottom Round.  The Chuck has a higher fat content and obvious marbling.  The Bottom Round was slightly leaner and would still have great flavor.

The Beef Chuck

Bottom Round

  As this was going on I was toasting Ancho Chiles in my toaster oven.  This was going to be a part of a SuperBowl buffet and I wasn't sure how much heat the guests could handle, so I opted to go for more flavor than searing heat.

Toasted Anchos

Meanwhile the beef was searing.  I cooked the Chuck first knowing the fat that rendered from that cut would be in the pan to sear the leaner Bottom Round.

Once the meat was seared, I drained it and then returned it to the pot.  To that I added a cup of black coffee, two 12oz bottles of beer, chicken stock (didn't have any beef handy), the chiles which I seeded and ground in a coffee grinder, and a healthy amount of cumin seed which I also toasted and ground.  I brought the pot to a boil and lowered to a simmer, then let it cook slow for about three hours.

All the time I kept tasting and adjusting the seasoning.  For all the chiles I put in, there didn't seem to be enough heat and there was a slight bitterness on the finish.  I addressed the heat issue by pureeing 3 chipotle chiles in adobo and adding them to the pot.  I thought the bitterness issue would resolve itself as the pot continued to simmer and the flavors all melded.  After about two hours of simmering it was apparent that I would need to add some sort of thickening agent to the pot.  Traditionally Masa Harina is called for, but I didn't have any on hand so I opted for a cousin....Cornmeal.  I made a slurry of cornmeal and cold water and added that to the pot by degrees.  I did this with the intention of letting the cornmeal cook into the chili for the last hour and thicken it gently without adding a grainy mouthfeel to the dish.  After three hours I had tender beef with just enough heat and a great consistency.

Serving the chili as Frito Pie sounded intriguing, but I wasn't to jazzed about the idea of Fritos Corn Chips (Sorry Frito Lay).  I got some Garden of Eatin Blue Corn chips and did my best interpretation.  Not too bad for a northern boy.