Chili, an old favorite

My Aunt Sarah sent my dad a chicken chili recipe when I was in high school. This recipe bascially started my love affair with chili in all forms; like I said in the last post, once I had decent chili, I was willing to appreciate even crappy canned grocery store chili on occasion. Actually I find that crappy canned grocery store chili is best for certain things, like making chili cheese fries, so long as you heat it up on the stovetop first and temper the flavor with a teaspoon or two of cumin first.

Dad and I tinkered around with Aunt Sarah's chili recipe until we hit on a flavor and consistency we liked; the original was too watery for us, so we reduced the liquid. The basic recipe looks like this, though when I make it for myself I usually just cut everything in half:

1 white or yellow onion, chopped

2 cans of kidney beans

2 beans of white northern beans, no pork

2 can of chopped green chilies

3-4 cans of chicken

2 cans of chicken stock, or 3-4 cups of water

1 teaspoon of chopped garlic

2 tablespoons of cumin powder

2 tablespoons of chili powder

2 tablespoons of oregano

2 teaspoons of ground cloves

Salt and pepper to taste

And bascially you just dump it all into a pot, bring it to a boil, simmer for as long as you can stand to hold out, and then eat. I like it with tortilla chips and sour cream as a garnish, but you can do whatever you want. Actually I have a really complicated ritual involving Tostitos "scoop" chips and getting the exact right amount of sour cream and chili and chip per bite, but that's just me being weird.

Lately I've been experimenting with the recipe, trying out all kinds of different techniques for cooking various parts of the recipe. Nothing too fancy, of course. First I tried using real chicken instead of canned chicken, so I bought some chicken breast strips and stir-fried them first before adding everything else. It's ok, but there are a few problems with it. First, I like how the canned chicken shreds a bit in the recipe, so you're getting a few chunks here and there, but also little tiny bits of chicken throughout the soupy part. Also I think I have a tendency to over cook chicken when I stir-fry it, so when it's already stir-fried and then brought to a boil along with everything else, the chicken can turn tough and chewy. Would it better to just cook the raw chicken along with everything else? So I get boiled chicken instead of stir-fried?

Another variation is sauteing the onions before adding them. I have sometimes sauteed a clove of chopped or mashed garlic along with the onions, but I can't really taste any difference in the end. The seasonings pretty much overwhelm everything anyway. Also I like the crunchiness that the onions retain for a day or so after cooking, which sauteing eliminates. I completely support cutting the seasonings back, by the way. It's a lot of chili powder and cumin and cloves and oregano, so you can easily halve the measurements and still have a very strong-tasting chili. I've ovedone it on occasion, but then, I don't really mind.

My latest attempt, on Sunday, saw me roasting and peeling the peppers (I used poblano) before adding them to the chili. This was nice but also didn't affect the taste much. I do hate that canned of chopped chilies often include little rolled-up bits of skin, and this eliminated that problem. The texture is a little different as well.

I also used a bottle of beer instead of water or stock for the liquid. I had a bottle of Sam Adams Ocktoberfest sitting around, so I poured one in and then drank the last one with my meal. I love that beer, but it might actually have had a little too much flavor for the chili (hard to imagine, I know), because I wound up with a slightly bitter flavor to the liquid of the chili. A lighter beer might work better.

Another variation that I have considered but not tried yet is cooking the beans myself instead of using canned beans. Cooking your own chicken and beans (and omitting canned chicken stock) is probably best if you're interested in cutting down on sodium and preservatives. So I might try that next time. I don't think I've ever cooked dried beans before, so that'll be a fun experiment.

The downside to all these variations is that they extend the cooking time, and one of the chief virtues of this chili is that it doesn't take long to make, so long as all you have to do is open up a bunch of cans and chop an onion.

Alright, close up shot of the chili:

Yum. I'm hungry for lunch now.

And now a completely gratuitious shot of my parents' cat looking grumpy:

Apparently I took that the last time I was home, because there it is on my camera. Isn't she cute? And grumpy?