From our Food Goddess, TaMara:
I’m having difficulty typing this because at the moment I’m sitting on the couch with a Great Dane draped over my shoulders like Grandma’s shawl. I’m not sure why, just where he landed this morning. And…now he’s snoring. I will do my best.
Sometimes JeffreyW and I have this odd blogging-psychic link and end up cooking similar meals days apart. I knew I was going to do a chili themed recipe exchange as soon as there was a chill in the air and football/baseball/hockey were in full swing (it’s like sports Christmas). So I wasn’t terribly surprised when I opened up the blog earlier this week to see he had created a chili themed post.
Chili is one of those recipes that appears to be capable of causing intense debate, so consider the following as our entries into that debate. Then you can discuss amongst yourselves the merits of your old family recipe for chili. Beans, no beans, fritos, no fritos, vegetarian, spicy or mild. And while your are at it, what’s else is on your plate for the weekend?
The recipes:Super easy chili, recipe here.
JeffreyW’s Chorizo Chili here.
Even this week’s Dinner menu involved chili: Kid Friendly Chili-Mac, menu and recipes here.
For some great ideas to do with your leftover chili, see Jeffrey’s photos here.
For tonight’s featured recipe, a different take on chili:
White Chicken Chili
3 lbs chicken thighs, bone in, skin on
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 jalapeno peppers, chopped
3 poblano chiles, chopped
3 anaheim chiles, chopped
2 onions, chopped
6 garlic cloves, crushed
Salt and Ground black pepper
1 tbsp ground cumin
1½ tsp ground coriander
3 (15-ounce) cans cannellini beans
3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 limes, minced fresh cilantro leaves and sour cream for garnish
Dutch oven, blenderIn the Dutch over, heat oil and brown chicken thighs, skin side down, until the skin is crisp. Remove to a plate. Pour off all but 1 tbsp of chicken fat, heat and add chiles and onion to the Dutch oven and sauté until soft, then add the garlic and sauté another 2-3 minutes. Remove half of the sautéed mixture to the blender.
Add 1 can of beans and the chicken broth to the blender. Puree beans and onion mixture until smooth. Add puree to the Dutch oven, along with remaining ingredients, except garnishes. Remove the skin from the chicken thighs and add those to the chili and let simmer, covered, at medium heat until the chicken is cooked through and pulls easily from the bone, about 30 to 45 minutes. Stirring occasionally.
Remove chicken to a plate and let cool enough to remove the meat from the bone and rough chop. Add the meat back to the chili and simmer until chicken is heated through, about 5 minutes. Serve immediately with fresh lime juice, cilantro and sour cream for each bowl.
That’s it for this week – hopefully I’ll have a Bixby update for you next week! – TaMara
Roger Moore
I am a big believer that the main vegetable in chili should be chiles. “Chili” that is mostly tomatoes with a little bit of chili powder to provide a hint of heat needs to die a slow death, or at least be accurately described as spicy tomato stew rather than chili. Most other variants- the kind of meat, beans or no, how spicy to make it, etc.- are negotiable.
Mnemosyne
Does anyone have a good beanless chili recipe? One with a minimum of onions and garlic would be preferable.
TaMara (BHF)
@Mnemosyne: How’s your..I don’t want to call it a diet…program going? I’m sure someone here will have a great recipe for you.
My old boss couldn’t do garlic or onions – I used any combination of spices to help him out – fennel seeds, basil, tarragon, limejuice, lemon pepper, lots of pepper. We got pretty good at it.
I would think in a bean-less chili we could use a variety of peppers and chilies and omit any garlic or onion.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
I would recommend going with the basics. Stem and seed chili pods, then steep them in boiling water to reconstitute them. While they’re steeping, brown some meat and whatever garlic and onion you choose to add in a large pot. Take the reconstituted pods and some of the water they steeped in, and blend until you get a smooth mixture. Add the blended chiles to the meat and start it simmering. Add a small amount of acid, either vinegar or citrus juice, and some cumin and oregano. Cook until the meat is so tender it starts to fall apart. Add salt to taste.
WereBear
I am a huge fan of anything which welcomes cheese and jalapeños.
Nobody mentioned a touch of dark chocolate yet. Fer shame.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Fritos? Fritos?
Why mess with either perfectly cromulent snack food or Mamma’s good chili like that?
Mnemosyne
@TaMara (BHF):
It’s working (meaning that my tummy troubles are less troublesome) but holy fuck it’s hard because garlic and onion are in EVERY prepared food, so I have to cook everything at home or suffer the consequences. Trying to combine that with running around in preparation for our move has been really, really hard and I haven’t been able to stick to the restrictions as well as I’d like to.
The one saving grace is that garlic olive oil is okay (the fructans that cause digestive issues are water-soluable, but not oil-soluable) so I don’t have to go totally without the garlic taste. I haven’t found a similar onion olive oil, but I haven’t been looking very hard.
I’ve also discovered that a lot of gluten-free products have other forbidden items in them, like honey (too high in fructose) or inulin. If you know anyone who’s gone gluten-free and complains that they still have digestive troubles, they’re probably sensitive to FODMAPs, not gluten. It turns out that there’s no such thing as gluten intolerance — there’s celiac disease and its milder cousin, gluten sensitivity, but what non-Celiac people call “gluten intolerance” is actually fructans intolerance. They are correctly identifying that there’s something in wheat that bothers them, but incorrect about exactly what part of the wheat is the problem.
ETA: Short version of my gluten claim: if the problem you have after eating wheat is joint pain or other autoimmune symptoms, you probably have gluten sensitivity/Celiac. If the problem you have after eating wheat is bloating, diarrhea and/or constipation, you’re probably sensitive to fructans, which is one of the FODMAPs.
skerry
@Mnemosyne: Couldn’t you make your own onion infused olive oil? I’m looking at the FODMAP diet, haven’t decided yet to pursue it, but I did buy the app from Monash Univ. Generic infused oil recipe below. My daughter-the-chef approved this. I know it’s work, but the whole diet seems like a lot of work.
ETA: She recommends use of organic onions, garlic, herbs, etc. so the resulting oil is “cleaner”.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: I know: I can’t do 99% of the prepared food out there either.
They are bound to put something in it that’s bad for somebody. All the more reason to cook… but very troublesome when stressed for time and effort, like you are now.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: What can you eat? If you can’t do onions, what about shallots? Can you eat dals? which are husked beans. Moong dal is the easiest among dals to digest. What about spices like cayenne and turmeric?
Ken
Did I miss something, or do you end up with a separate plate of crispy chicken thigh skins?
Now I’m pondering slicing those into strips, baking them into something like crackling, and serving on the side as a garnish.
raven
@Mnemosyne: Real Texas chili is beef and dried red peppers.
You can get a copy of this on Amazon for a penny plus shipping, great cookbook:
Texas on the Halfshell
Woodrowfan
feh, it’s not chili unless it’s on spaghetti and topped with cheese.
But I prefer beanless chili too. Not because of diet issues\. I just don;t like beans.
raven
TaMara (BHF)
@Ken: They would never make it that far in my house. I am ashamed to say they’d probably be eaten as soon as they were cool enough.
Mnemosyne
@skerry:
I would probably manage to give myself botulism if I made my own oil (make sure you scrub the bottle really really well and that it’s 100 percent dry before you put the onion infused oil in it!) but we have a fancy olive oil shop here in town, so I just need to get my butt down there or even just to Whole Foods and buy some.
@schrodinger’s cat:
The only onion I can have is the green part of scallions (green onion). Nothing else in the onion family. This is why this sucks ass. ;-) I’ll have to check on those beans — I can have green beans, but no legumes (except peanuts, and those have to be limited).
It does seem so far that Asian cuisines are the most FODMAPs-friendly — primarily non-wheat noodles and it’s relatively easy to ask them to leave out the onions and garlic on many dishes.
Mike in NC
Neighbor served up some chili last weekend that was perfectly fine except for the chopped green olives. Who the hell puts olives in chili? Yuck.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: What about ginger? and other spices?
WereBear
I must say, struggling with my health issue (it’s been in high gear for a year now but responding to somewhat unorthodox treatments) I gave up all kinds of things: wheat, caffeine, alcohol, dairy, nuts.
In the final analysis, what I still have an iron grip upon is chocolate.
And fortunately, it doesn’t seem to do me any harm at all.
Finally, a break.
skerry
@schrodinger’s cat: Ginger is fine along with most spices and herbs.
TaMara (BHF)
@Mnemosyne: My recommendation (not that you asked) for cooking when things are all crazy is stir-fry. Quick, easy, fresh and you can change up the flavors just by changing up the ingredients and spices. Can you have rice? Cook up a big batch and it keeps well in the refrigerator for up to a week and reheats beautifully.
It might feel a bit redundant to stir-fry nightly, but at least it’s quick and flavorful.
I’m also big on homemade soups – large batches for lunch, keeps well.
And reusable containers (ziplock bags or plastic containers) that I keep chopped up salad ingredients in (if kept separate they last longer) that I then mix together for salads.
And smoothies from frozen fruits and fresh bananas for breakfast.
Those are all my quick meals when I just don’t have time to get creative in the kitchen. It takes a bit of planning, like on Sundays, but then the rest of the week is a breeze.
schrodinger's cat
@skerry: Then you can season the oil with mustard seeds,chillies, cumin seeds etc and use that to flavor veggies.
Violet
@Mnemosyne: Can you do tomatoes on your diet?
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Most spices are fine. Some people recommend that one spice you talked about (asafoetida?) to get an onion-y taste without onion.
The other thing that makes this hard is that I suck at meal planning, so I tend to open up the fridge or freezer and discover that I have everything I need to make dinner except one vital ingredient, like chicken or rice, and it’s already 8 o’clock and I don’t want to go back out to buy it.
I really, really miss the function they used to have on the Weight Watchers website that would auto-generate a full week of menus (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks) for me so all I would have to do is buy the stuff. I haven’t been able to find anything similar since then. ADHD and meal planning do not go together!
Violet
@Mnemosyne: Moving is so stressful and changing your diet this dramatically is stressful too. I’m full of admiration that you’re doing both at once!
TaMara (BHF)
@Mnemosyne: I have a whole year’s worth, including shopping lists, that I would gladly give you, but it would never meet your restrictions. :-(
Violet
@Mnemosyne: Maybe there is a prepared meals place near you that you could do a week or two week trial with while you’re moving. We have various types of healthy meal places here. They’ll make it and you can pick them up. They may even deliver–not sure. Depending on the place, they offer foods that meet a variety of diets. It might be the easiest thing for you when you get into the busiest part of the move.
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne: If you want to keep it simple, you can use Wick Fowler’s 2-alarm chili mix.
It doesn’t have all the usual junk that’s in most store-bought mixes. It’s really 7 different spice packages, and you can use as much or as little of each spice as you want. I like spicy, so I use all of all 7 packets. IIRC the spices are: chili powder, red pepper (cayenne), cumin-oregano, paprika, salt, dried garlic and onions. I may be missing one spice. You would just not use the garlic and onions.
My chili always wins 2nd prize in chili contests – never first, but consistently second.
I brown good quality ground meat, sirloin or something pretty low fat. I add all the spice and a big bottle of some kind of V-8 – original, hot, whatever you like. I love peppers, so I add 3 green peppers (chopped) and let it simmer. I hate beans, so I don’t put any beans in.
They sell the 2-alarm chili kit in stores around here, but you can also get it at amazon at the link above.
Violet
@Mnemosyne: Here’s a FODMAP meal plan for a week. Might get you started. Some recipes linked within.
skerry
@Mnemosyne: You have the Monash Univ app, right? You can create a shopping list from the recipes they have. You pick the breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert that you want and add it to the shopping list. It populates with the ingredients you need for that dish.
I don’t see a way to export the list from the app. That might be a problem.
I’m not familiar with the WW tool, but this one seems to be ok.
Mnemosyne
@skerry:
The thing I loved about the WW app is that it picked all of the meals for me and all I had to do was edit out the things I didn’t like. Yes, I am that lazy. ;-) Or, shall we say, Organizationally Challenged.
I was signed up with a website called Slender Kitchen for a while that sent me full menus every week, but it became hard to keep up with cooking dinner every night and I always ended up with leftovers going bad in my fridge.
I’m a little tempted by Once A Month Meals, but that could also take more planning than I’m willing to do. They do have a FODMAPs-friendly “mini menu,” which may be worth me paying $10 for a month’s access to get to.
Woodrowfan
@Mike in NC:
ewww. that’s evil.
Wag
@Ken:
This. I can imagine strips of chicken skin crispy and delicious spread like tortilla chips over the chili.
Yummy!
Steeplejack
I’m pretty much “live and let live” on chili ingredients, but I sometimes can’t repress an eye-roll for purists who say chili is just meat, chile peppers and spices, nothing else. Originally it might have been, but that was so it could be dried into bricks for storage and reconstitution later—sort of a primitive MRE. Not sure that’s a reason to enshrine that recipe as immutable and sneer at all variations/improvements.
I made a pot of chili just last night. I vary the recipe: sometimes ground beef, sometimes round or chuck steak cut into pieces, if I’ve got the time/inclination for a long, slow cook; bell peppers and onions are optional. Sometimes I put in some diced jalapeños. Have occasionally used ancho chiles. But I do like red kidney beans and some tomato something for “brightness” on the taste (tomatoes, tomato paste, even V-8). Last night I used fire-roasted diced tomatoes (one can) with two cans of red kidney beans and one pound of “organic” ground beef. Secret blend of spices, of course, but sometimes when I’m in a hurry I have used the spice packets from the grocery. It’s food, not a religion.
But that Cincinnati-style stuff with spaghetti is right out.
In a similar vein, I have been jonesin’ for a sloppy joe lately, and I can’t remember the last time I had one. Saw a Rachael Ray recipe for an upscale version that looked pretty good. Might give that a go soon.
jibeaux
@Steeplejack: amen on the Cincinnati. My whole family is from up there, but I have never developed a taste for cinnamon in chili, yuck.
eldorado
chile verde. no apologies.
Billy K.
If it has beans in it, it’s not chili. Call it whatever the eff you want, but don’t call it “chili.”
c u n d gulag
When I lived with them, my parents would ask me to make chili once in a while.
But, if I added any spices, they would bitch that it was too hot and spicy!
Oy!
My dad was Ukrainian, and my mom, is Russian – so, what do they know about hot and spicy food?
Nothing.
When they complained, I told them, “Why not just brown some meat, and then throw in a can of beans? Because, that sounds like what you want. Nothing wrong with that – it just ain’t ‘chili’ without heat and spice!”
I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVES me some hot and spicy food!
But, at age 56, it doesn’t love me anymore.
OY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
tybee
@raven:
mmm. dried red ants and cigar ash. tasty stuff.
Joel Hanes
Here’s the classic Tolbert approach to Texas red, as published in Esquire around 1981
————
North Texas Red Chili by Frank X. Tolbert
Serving Size : 50
Amount Measure Ingredient — Preparation Method
——– ———— ——————————–
1 pint tequila
10 medium jalapeno peppers
15 medium ancho chili peppers
3 medium chipotle peppers
10 medium japanese peppers
30 cloves garlic — minced
30 pounds stew meat — lean
1 cup flour
4 cups chili powder
6 cups beef bouillon
3 quarts beer — light
4 tablespoons coriander — ground
6 tablespoons cumin
4 tablespoons oregano
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons salt
5 tablespoons masa harina
1) Have a big hit of tequila to establish a chili perspective.
Pace yourself, though: serious chili cookery requires less
concentration than brain surgery, but you’ll still need your
wits.
2) Discard seeds and veins from dried peppers. Cover peppers with
water and boil for fifteen minutes, then cover pot and let sit.
3) Chop seeded and deveined jalapenos into small bits. Set aside.
(CAUTION: Peppers burn! Beware of cooking fumes when boiling
peppers; wash hands thoroughly after working with them. Be
careful where you put your fingers for a couple of days.)
4) Take another belt of tequila. Move on to Phase II.
5) Lightly saute garlic in bacon drippings (or cooking oil) over
medium heat. Do not brown. Transfer to kettle.
6) Brown meat a handful at a time in the pan used for the garlic.
Turn frequently with a spatula. Do not crowd, or meat will steam.
Transfer to kettle. (NOTE: This is boring and messy. Wear an
apron and be prepared to clean up a lot of spatters.)
7) Sift flour and chili powder together. Combine with meat. Stir
with a large wooden spoon (or small boat paddle) until meat is
lightly coated.
8) Remove cooked chili peppers from liquid and mash into a paste.
Save liquid. Add all peppers (including the jalapenos) to kettle.
9) Add beef broth, chili cooking liquid, and two and a half
quarts of the beer to the kettle. Bring to a boil over medium
heat. Stir frequently to avoid sticking. Liquid should be at
least two or three inches above meat. Add more beer (or even
water) if necessary.
10) More tequila; chase with remaining beer.
11) Reduce heat to a strong simmer, then add other seasonings.
Rub cumin seeds, oregano, and coriander between your hands over
the kettle. This may cause them to blend into the broth quicker,
and it certainly feels good.
12) Cook over low heat, partially covered, until meat just begins
to fall apart. This should take two and a half to three hours.
Stir frequently. Taste from time to time to appreciate what a
fine brew you have. Adjust spices. Relax, but don’t collapse.
13) Tequila.
14) Optional: Make a roux with the masa harina and a cup or so of
the cooking liquid. Add to the kettle for the last fifteen
minutes of cooking. Do this if the chili needs to be thickened a
bit or if you’re partial to the tortilla bite that masa imparts.
15) Finish the tequila, if you haven’t already.
16) Cool the chili, refrigerate overnight, and skim the grease
off the top of the kettle the next morning. Leave it out of the
refrigerator for a couple of hours before starting to heat it up.
Warm S-L-O-W-L-Y over a very low fire before serving. Stir a lot
to make sure it doesn’t stick. Don’t blow it all after this much
work!
Serves 35-40 chiliheads or 55-60 polite eaters. I prefer it
straight, but some people like it “going to the prom” (that is,
topped with grated cheddar and chopped onions and maybe some
chopped jalapenos, or a dollop of hot sauce).
A note on hotness: First-timers may want to cut back on the
number of peppers in this recipe, at least during the early
stages of cooking. Serious chili is a rich, tasty nectar with a
sharp bite, but it shouldn’t be so hot you can’t eat it. On the
other hand, it should make your forehead sweat!