Grubbin' With Fuzzy - White Chili

Having successfully reproduced, and dare I say "improved", my father's excellent chili, I decided to take it in a different direction: White. I've had white chili before, but haven't yet attempted to make a batch myself. The idea is pretty straightforward: Chili - Tomatoes - Beef + Chicken - Red Kidneys +White Kidneys = White Chili.

I decided last week that it was time to try it to use up an old package of boneless chicken thighs that I found in the back of the freezer from last February choice portions of deboned chicken that has been carefully aged in cold storage for 450 days. As always, the portions and ingredients can be played with.

• 1-10 Fresh chilies of your choice, diced (I used Cubanelle to start and Serrano to finish)
• 1-2 lbs Boneless chicken or pork
• 4-5 cans of light colored beans
• 1 can chicken broth
• 12 oz pale beer (ever the connoisseur, I only use the best: Miller High Life! It's the champaign of beers, you know!
• a few handfuls crushed toritilla chips (This is primarily a thickening agent)

spices:

• Cumin and Oregano, use your best judgement for amount
• Salt/Pepper to taste

Assembly is pretty simple.

1) Brown the chicken.
2) Throw everything except the spices and half the chilies into a slow cooker, set it low, and walk away for a few hours.
3)Throw in the last of the chilies and the spices. walk away for one more hour.
4) Om nom nom nom...

Other thoughts

• While cheddar goes best with Red Chili, your better of with Monterey or Pepper Jack on top of this stuff.
• About chilies: If you throw them in towards the beginning, the most of the flavor and heat will cook right out. add them in towards the end (like the spices) and your chili will have a kick. Adjust according to the wussiness of you and your guests.
• you can add the crushed tortilla chips closer to the end if you want to see how much you'll need to thicken, but don't add salt until after you are sure you added enough chips.
• Instead of chips, you can used corn meal. But which of those two things are you more likely to have on hand?
• Not mentioned in the list of ingredients above is a 6 oz can of Salsa Verde. I'm not sure if that really had an impact or not, so I'll leave that to you guys.

Enjoy!

IT Dept Chili Showdown, Year 2

And this time it's personal!

No, really, for the organizer, it is. You see, last year he asked us not to turn up the heat too much to spare our co-worker the brunt of a Capsaicin Assault. Our coworkers in turn complained that the chili was too weak, thereby painting the IT Department as a bunch of pansies who like wussy chili.

This lit a fire under our even tempered organizer, so he in turn, asked us to light a fire inside them, all but demanding we make people cry.

So the night before I've been humming the Canyonero song from The Simpsons, replacing the word "Canyonero" with "Habrenero". Like the two I chopped up and put in the Chili. I chopped a third one and bagged it up, in case the fire cooks out too much from the first two.

What's shriveled, orange, and makes people cry, eat more than one and you'll wish you would die? HabanerooooOOOOOOoooo... Habaneroooo...

Also, I used stew beef and a chopped pork roast for meat in the hopes that whole cuts would improve the texture. Added one or two hours before serving was a few chipotles and one more chopped Habanero to drive the heat home. Also the cumin and chili powder weren't added until here, as well.

So, how'd it go?

We'll our mission to add the heat back into the competition was a successes. The tough guys enjoyed it, and the more heat adverse people flocked to two or three entries that weren't punishing on the tongue.

We had nine entries this year instead of six. All of them were about evenly matched, unlike the year before where the quality between the top half and the bottom half was a wide as a trench (recap of last year's bottom three: Watery, Tomato Sauce with Beans, and Mediocre Town).

The voting was fairly evenly distributed, and I secured 2nd place for my name again: "Chili for Smart and Good Looking Folk", the 1st place winner in the name category was "Meat Your Maker."[sic] This year the prizes were thematic, and I won a bottle of Blair's After Death Sauce. Mmm Mmm! In the future, I think I'll be using more habaneros for my chili. That turned out pretty well.

Grubbin' With Fuzzy - Chili Showdown

At work, one of the supervisors organized a contest to see who could make the best Chili, with prizes for Overall Best Taste, Hottest, and just because, Best Name.

The Ground Rules:

• Only employees may provide an entry; no one's allowed to go home and say, "Honey, we're having a contest tomorrow, could you make a batch of your chili for me?" Because some people would do just that. If you can't cook it, then don't bring it in.
• Judging is done anonymously, by ballot cast by the other departments.
• When someone says stop, or goes limp, even if he's just faking it, the Showdown is over.
• If this is your first night at the Chili Showdown, you have to fight.

Whoops, I think I got a little Fight Club in there. Sorry.

Anyway, I had called the week before to get my Dad's Chili recipe so as to not bumble into this without a clue; the respect and admiration of my coworkers is at stake! There were a total of six contenders, each with a fairly unique chili. I've always been surprised that the same general idea of a stew with beef, beans, and tomatoes can vary so drastically across so many people.

One contender used too many tomatoes, and it turned out like a meaty pasta sauce with some chili powder. Another was OK, but a the consistency was a little too watery. Another entry was kinda mediocre; nothing bad in particular, but failed to make a lasting impression. What baffled me was that about half of the entries did not have any cumin in them, at least not that I could taste.

**********

People, let's make this clear: If you don't have cumin in it. don't call it chili. Call it bean soup with beef, call it southwestern stew, whatever. But. It's. Not. Chili. Without. Cumin. That is all.

**********

The top three were my chili, the second a spicy meaty entry, with chunks of chuck roast stewed in (named "Vegan's Nightmare"), the last decided defy the usual seasoning mix and added cinnamon and cocoa powder to the mix which made for kind of a sweet flavor. I didn't much care for it, but a lot of other people loved it, so what do I know?

Anyway, the organizer didn't want any one entrant to win in multiple categories (I got the rankings from him after wards) and even though he submitted a chili, he's too much of a class act to give himself a prize in his own contest. Because vegan's nightmare took the "Hottest" Category, I took best name, and the cinnamon/cocoa chili was his own, the prize went to the mediocre chili. I guess people don't like watery chili or tomato sauce with beans masquerading as chili.

So, without further ado, here's my chili, complete with winning name:

Dr. Studlington's Stewed Chili Soup and Health Elixir

Measurements are approximate; the best cooking does not submit itself to metrics!

2 cans (15oz each) of Red Kidney Beans (do not drain)
2 cans (15oz each) of Pinto Beans (do not drain)
1 can (15oz) of Black Beans (yeah, go ahead and drain/rinse these ones)
1 lg. can (29oz) tomato puree
1 lg. can (29oz) diced tomatoes
8 oz beer (you can use 12 oz, but a portion of it seems to [burp] disappear in my kitchen)
1 med-large onion, chopped
1 green pepper chopped
1.5 - 2 lbs ground beef
2 - 3 tbsp chili powder
1 - 2 tbsp cumin (srsly. Not chili without it!)

1) Sweat onion and green pepper with some oil in a 5qt pot until tender.
2) Brown the ground beef
3) Add tomatoes, beer, and beans. simmer for an hour
4) add seasonings, simmer for another hour
5) Om nom nom nom nom...

Final Notes: Dad's original recipe didn't call for beer, but another 29 oz of crushed tomatoes. Space limitations in my cookware caused me improvise (here's an Christmas gift idea for the folks: 6qt or greater capacity soup pot.)

This is even better when served over some Fritos and topped with Cheddar Cheese.

Dr. Studlington's Stewed Chili Soup and Health Elixir is the lugubrious cure for Melancholy, the Grippe, out of balance humors, nervousness, and hysteria. It also packs enough flavinoids and cytoroids to take the lethargy out of the most slothful person and give him enough energy to jitterbug all through the night. Why delay? Get yours today! Hurry, before they're all gone away!!

Dr. Studlington's Stewed Chili Soup and Health Elixir may not cure one or more of the afflictions listed above. Side effects may include rapid weight loss, rapid weight gain, unusual hair growth or loss, numbness in the extremities, cancer of the breast, prostate, or pancreas, growth of a tail, cancer of the tail, moodswings, sudden sexual attraction to the same gender, or a different gender of a different species, hallucination, or dry mouth. Do not take if you are nursing, pregnant, may become pregnant, might cause someone to become pregnant, often flip through baby name books, have any thought remotely involving babies, or have had at least one parent that had ever been pregnant. Use as directed.