Texas Style Chili
Two substantive posts on line for tomorrow and Tuesday or Wednesday. In the meantime, here’s Friday night’s dish.
It was a 2.5 lb. cross rib roast; trimmed, cubed, and then browned pretty well in the cooking pot in a big tbsp of lard and another of bacon drippings — medium heat. Once browned, I added 5 ladles of my beef stock, a couple of cups of water, about 6-7 tbsp chili powder and 2 tbsp Thai massaman curry paste (just enough to have people go: "what’s that?!"). These were all rounded tbsps. Then: one cap of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, 4 cloves of fresh garlic crushed & chopped, a medium onion, chopped, 3/4 of a green bell pepper, cubed, and about a cup of chopped crimini mushrooms.
Chili in the Pot
Be patient. Once I brought it all to a boil, it’s about an hour covered on your smallest burner low. Then, take the cover off and increase heat –if needed — until you get a light simmer. This will reduce and thicken the sauce — essential.
I was very pleased because inside of the first hour, the roast was already tender enough to break apart with a fork.
Chili for three
It was garnished with — get this! — FAGE Total yogurt. Way better than sour cream.
Chili No Beans
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As a Texan, I’m proud that you resisted the urge to screw up perfectly good chili by adding beans, which is a common mistake that most folks make. I have to say, I’ve never eaten chili made out of roast. We get chili grind. (Think ground beef only really thick instead of little strands of meat). Looks pretty good, I must say. I’d never eaten chili with sour cream until I ate some at Chili’s one day. I’ll have to try it with the yogurt. I’ve got about 8 lbs of chili in the fridge that we made last week. Next time, I’ll try your version. Thanks! (oh and my mom sometimes adds bloody mary mix in her chili…weird).
Looks very nice. I have to ask though, is American chili powder different to what I, in the UK, would call chili powder? If I used 7-8 heaped tablespoons of cayenne pepper in my chili it’d be pretty much inedible (and I love eating chili peppers, I grow Nagas as a hobby). Anyone know what sort of peppers go into your chili powder?
Steve:
It’s a mix of some various things, cayenne being one of them. It’s a very “Texas” chili flavor and can be hot or not to hot. Add extra cayenne to boost the heat, which is what I normally do. In this case, however, I used the Thai massaman curry paste to boost the heat. Gives it that darker look, too.
Thanks Richard.
I’ll try to pick some up next time I’m over there.
American Chili Powder is usually a mixture of various ground chili’s, oregano and cumin. Sometimes onion powder or garlic powder is added
Man,
I have to become a better cook. I can’t even imagining eating that kind of dish on a weekday right now.
Wow. That looks absolutely delicious!
loving the blog, i’ve been looking for some good recipes to boost my own routine.
checked your before and after shots, pretty impressive matey 🙂
Great. I had to go and read this post just before lunch. Those photographs are amazing. My mouth is now completely awash with anticipatory salivary action. I think it’s now officially lunch time 😛
Another way to use the massaman curry paste is to use about 1/3 a cup (a small can of the thai curry paste) with a shoulder or chuck roast in a crock pot. I added a few cloves of minced garlic and ginger and after 6 hours it was ready to go. I think it would also make a nice stew if I added coconut milk.
I’ve got a batch of this cooking right now. Thanks for the inspiration. 🙂
Aloha! If you like this, I have an excellent paleo chili recipe as well on my website!
http://paleomama.com
Good work, Kat. Interesting that you paired pork & persimmon. I did that on a total whim back here:
https://freetheanimal.com/2008/11/carnitas-persimmon.html
Keep on, “paleomama.”
So how would this be without the garlic and onion? Yeah I know, crazy to leave out but our 5 mo old still finds these two ingredients to cause a lot of gas (a la breastmilk).
Well it’s pretty spicy anyway. Should be OK. You might add more bell pepper and/or add in some celery.