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Hi there! For those of you that don't know (all of you save 1-2 :D) I just finished moving into my new appt. As far as cooking is concerned, I’m sure you’ve all been there. Fortunately for me despite my new stove being, quite literally, blown up, and not being able to find anything but my chef’s knife and a few miscellaneous spices I managed to create some damn fine chili.
While the ingredients may be brought into question, I’m sure once you taste it for yourself any “wtf?” will be quelled. I worked with what I had, and I crossed and doubled-back over many-a regional boundary in the process. Note that the “Ingredients” are the only thing that can’t be subbed or omitted to maintain the integrity of the recipe, any of the spices and condiments you have will do fine; adjust to taste.
Also, I can't find my camera at this point so the best I can do is a laptop photo =D
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KR2YJ0v.jpg)
Ingredients:
-1 Ripe Banana, Mashed
-1/2-1 Granny Smith Apple, Diced
-2 Big Ol’ Sweet Onions, Sliced
-4 Cloves of Garlic, Smashed
-1 lb+ Good Chili Meat*
-3 (15oz. Cans of Assorted Beans, Washed and Drained (I like Pinto, Kidney, + Black)
-1 28oz. Can Diced Tomatoes
-1-2 Cups of Beef or Veggie Stock or Beer (‘Muricah, I like Yuengling)
-1/2 Cup (4oz) of Tomato Paste or Salsa of Choice
-1-2 TBS Tonkatsu Sauce (or Worchester)
-1 TBS Spicy Brown Mustard
-1 TBS Gochujang (see my previous blog)
-1 TBS Apple Cider Vinegar
Spices:
-1 TBS Smoked Paprika
-2 tsp. Black Pepper, ground
-2 tsp. Turmeric
-2 tsp. Corriander
-2 tsp. Cumin
-2 tsp. Powdered Ginger
-1 tsp. Hot Chinese Mustard
-1 tsp. Cinnamon
-1 tsp. Nutmeg
-Pinch of Salt
-1 Bay Leaf
-1 Piece (~3”) Cassia Bark or Cinnamon Stick
Serving Suggestions:
-Sour Cream
-Greek Yogurt (my preference, fuck yeah health!)
-Guacamole
-Franks Red Hot
-Sriracha
-Benishoga (pickled ginger, awesome)
-Shredded Cheese
Procedure:
1) Heat up a thick-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium heat.
2) Chop or dice (depending on preference) apple and onions; place in pot over a little neutral oil, turn heat down to medium low.
3) Smash banana and garlic, throw in the pot; cover, stirring occasionally.
4) While the onions are cooking, brown your meat**, then set aside.
5) When the onions are good and caramelized (translucent), add in the remaining ingredients and spices and bring the contents to a low simmer, uncovered, over med-low heat. Add in additional fluid if needed to thin the chili.
6) Let the chili simmer to desired thickness (~30minutes)
7) Spoon out the now quite fragrant goodness and eat the damn thing.
Notes:
*Chili Meat: What makes good chili meat? Pretty much anything you have precooked (seriously, chili is a godlike meal source for recycling leftovers), and the following specific meats/cuts (certainly not all-inclusive):
-Ground Beef (‘Muricah approval)
-Ground Anything
-Chicken Thighs
-Chicken Breast (my favorite, fuck yeah health!)
-Beef Round
-Ham, especially with a hock thrown in (zomg tasty!!!!)
-Goat (don’t naysay this until you try it, phenomenal)
-Lamb Shanks
**Browning the meat and adjusting cook time accordingly:
-Ground anything-Brown on high and separate with spatula until little pink is left, then add to pot with other ingredients
-Chicken-Sear each side until just barely undone and then let cook with the chili for ~15min or so
-Beef Round-Cube and sear each side over high heat until brown, then add to pot with other ingredients
-The following 3 cuts of Ham, Goat and Lamb are the kind of meat used in chili only for leftover meals. They generally require too long of a cooking time to use in a quick chili recipe (which this is), but if you have them in your fridge, just dice ‘em up and throw them in with the rest of your ingredients.
***Note on liquid level:
So your actual solids in the chili should be just barely covered by liquid after you finish adding in all of the ingredients to your pot before you bring it to a simmer. In order to supply your chili with more liquid if you need it, you have a few options. Obviously what I’ve listed above in terms of stocks and booze, but also water. To keep things lower-sodium, I generally use 1 cup of stock and finish it off with beer, but you can experiment!
 
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I have never in my life seen banana or apple in a chili recipie. However, I also didn't know chili mac was a thing until a couple months ago... so because of that, and based on you seemingly you know your shit, your Murican-ness and good beer taste, I will take your word for it.
But do explain: what is the reasoning behind banana and apple being in there?? The other stuff I can see obvious reasons and stuff, but I really have never heard of that!
Also, I like your extensive meat list (cubed round or sirloin rules) but it lacks any kind of sausage!!! chorizo is dope in chili. Cubed meat is def a long chili, like 4-6 hour. If I am doing a quickie, I lean towards ground or chicken. I will def have to give goat or lamb a crack i nthe future.
Chili is cool because there are so many gooddamn variations on it. Cool blog!
Also good job finally posting photos 
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all my chilis get something sweet, mostly it's a giant blob of jam, or loads of brown sugar. Balances out the acidity of the tomatoes. I also add two big tablespoons of coffee powder, and sometimes beer.
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On July 27 2013 06:54 QuanticHawk wrote:I have never in my life seen banana or apple in a chili recipie. However, I also didn't know chili mac was a thing until a couple months ago... so because of that, and based on you seemingly you know your shit, your Murican-ness and good beer taste, I will take your word for it. But do explain: what is the reasoning behind banana and apple being in there?? The other stuff I can see obvious reasons and stuff, but I really have never heard of that! Also, I like your extensive meat list (cubed round or sirloin rules) but it lacks any kind of sausage!!! chorizo is dope in chili. Cubed meat is def a long chili, like 4-6 hour. If I am doing a quickie, I lean towards ground or chicken. I will def have to give goat or lamb a crack i nthe future. Chili is cool because there are so many gooddamn variations on it. Cool blog! Also good job finally posting photos
Oh shit, sausage. Yeah, any cheap cut will work, quite literally! I'm not a fan of ground meat in general though so I tend to forget it when writing recipes, haha.
OK, the apple comes from my Grandmother. She's German, she cooks German food, and diced apple, as long as it's not too sweet (hence the Granny Smith) actually does a wonderful job of balancing out the acidity of tomatoes and the vinegar. Pork and sauerkraut and many other German stewed dishes often contain acidic foods, and many of the same often include apples in their, sometimes 1/2 or even 1/4.
Banana is a carryover from Eastern curry dishes, I like my chili to have a sweet taste (I will put up my favorite recipe once I know where to get many-a pepper), and instead of adding brown sugar, you'll find that a lot of old school Japanese curry makers will use banana's in their rue. This is how I make my curry, I end up using both the apple and banana and let it sit with 1/4 of the onions I use, a bunch of garlic, some ginger, and a whole mess of spices. While many variations end up using jam or chutney (apricot and mango are common, specifically), I tend to use whole fruit, or use preserves I made myself.
Theoretically this would let stay for 3 days, covered, on the stove, and each night it would be reheated, stirred, and taken off the burner. After doing this twice, I decided to skip the step for my curry dishes, and I usually forgo adding the banana into my American chili recipes, but I didn't have any maple syrup in my new appt, so I used a banana instead as I had a few lying around. Also, it quite compliments the Tonkatsu sauce I use in the recipe.
If I'm cooking the day after a long ride or run and need more fat, I usually cook up some bacon, and then pan fry the apple and banana in the bacon fat and toss it in with the onions, saving the bacon for a topping ;D. (it's also really good on guac)
Sorry for the long winded explanation, hope it helps, probably just rambling. If you'd like to see my curry recipe I'll post it sometime. Next is Rendang I think. mmmm beef.
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Yeah the apple one made a bit more sense to me when i thought about it, but the banana really threw me off haha. I've tried a bunch of the stuff you guys mentioned but i do wanna give this a whirl.
My go to is basically beer (magic hat 9 is my preferred due to the apricot sweetness), soda (coke or virgil's cream soda), broth, some kinda cube meat (sirloin!), chorizo, ground, bunch of onion, tomato, cinnamon stick, unswetened chocolate, cilantro, cumin, tiny bit dried basil, bay leaves, s&p, garlic salt, a little cornmeal or crushed tortilla chips, jalapenos and whatever other peppers you like. it's one of those 6 hour simmers. picked up somewhere modified it a tiny bit and it is my go to if i dont feel like experiementing
the banana stuff is interesting. I never knew any of that stuff. My experience with eating or cooking curry is very limited
I never screwed around with bacon in my chili, but i am sure it would be good. I looooove it in red beans and rice ahhhh. Would never think of it on guac either!
Looking forward to more posts!
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interesting ideas on ingredients! I've only just begun experimenting with chili so I'll try some of this stuff out! Thanks for sharing and looking forward to more food blogs :D
(greek or turkish yogurt on chili is highly recommended)
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On July 27 2013 07:41 QuanticHawk wrote:
Yeah the apple one made a bit more sense to me when i thought about it, but the banana really threw me off haha. I've tried a bunch of the stuff you guys mentioned but i do wanna give this a whirl.
My go to is basically beer (magic hat 9 is my preferred due to the apricot sweetness), soda (coke or virgil's cream soda), broth, some kinda cube meat (sirloin!), chorizo, ground, bunch of onion, tomato, cinnamon stick, unswetened chocolate, cilantro, cumin, tiny bit dried basil, bay leaves, s&p, garlic salt, a little cornmeal or crushed tortilla chips, jalapenos and whatever other peppers you like. it's one of those 6 hour simmers. picked up somewhere modified it a tiny bit and it is my go to if i dont feel like experiementing
the banana stuff is interesting. I never knew any of that stuff. My experience with eating or cooking curry is very limited
I never screwed around with bacon in my chili, but i am sure it would be good. I looooove it in red beans and rice ahhhh. Would never think of it on guac either!
Looking forward to more posts!
I've never thought about adding cornmeal before. I'm definitely going to give it a try. I wish I had basil, need to go to philly to stock up soon, haha. Sadly I don't drink, so for cooking I stick to Sake or w/e my roommate is drink/we have around. Generally it's Victory, Yuengling, or IPA. Coke and chicken is like crack, never tried cream soda though.
This is going to sound like a noob question, but are their multiple kinds of magic hat 9 (specifically with the apricot) or can I not get it wrong? I always have some frozen soup in the freezer so I'll try some with magic hat next month and see how it works :D
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Cornmeal was just in the orginal recipe i saw. I sometimse add it or tortillas;sometimes i dont. Cream soda was just on a whim because I was drinking virgils cream soda, the dopest cream soda ever. It was good enough, but i probably would just use coke in the future because it is expensive haha.
magic hat is the brewer, 9 is one of the beers
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/96/299
i know you dont drink, but if you're looking to cook with booze and looking for a specific flavor profile, there's a good place to look. you cant just send your roommate on a quest to go try sometthing new to drink and you both win haha
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Canned tomatoes? Unforgivable.
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I have to say, I have tried a chili with banana in it once and it was way too sweet and banana-ey. A bit of brown sugar is enough for me, but hey, maybe yours is more balanced than the one I tried.
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On July 27 2013 10:21 Dagobert wrote:
Canned tomatoes? Unforgivable.
I just moved and didn't do a food shopping yet, my roommate had canned tomatoes. ><
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On July 27 2013 10:21 Dagobert wrote:
Canned tomatoes? Unforgivable.
usually canned = crappy, but it is the total opposite with tomatoes. if local stuff is not in season, it is way better than getting the super market stuff that is shipped from wherever. canned san marzanos from italy will blow anything else out of the water as far as stews chilis sauces etc
also, imo, chili is much better with canned vs fresh
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Yo!
Bump/hijack!
I found a post I did elsewhere about a chili experiment. This was a bit of divergence from my normal chili, and from the looks of the liquid I was probably a bit sauced up while making this because there is no way I used two full beers broth and coke, but this is fairly close to what I normally do + a few tweaks because experimenting with chili is the best.
Guessed a little bit on quantities since I based this off of a recipe I saw but I was modyfing it a tad and did stuff to taste
a little more than 4.5lbs of chuck
a little more than 1lbs of chorizo
1 very large onion
5 cloves of garlic (to be honest, I think I diced up 3-4 and just did powder to taste once I realized it was a little lacking)
1 bottle choc stout
1 bottle black sout
beef broth
a little Coke
bourbon to deglaze pans
chipotle In adobo
chili powder
1 small cinnamon stick
ghiradelli 100% unsweetened cacao bar
s&p to taste
optional stuff: bell peppers, corn, beans
Dust your chuck with a little s&p and brown it. By brown, I mean throw all of it in a pan (or pans—I did this in two to save time and transferred to my pot) and just keep it heat on one side then take it out with a slotted spoon (reserve fat) and put in a bowl to hold. If you overdo it here, the meat gets tough.
while it is browning, skin and dice up your chorizo to your desired size. Once the chuck is done, drop in your sausage and brown that really well
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xRahGl6.jpg)
while that goes on, chop yer onions
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OqKqFGj.jpg)
Once the sausage is done, throw it in a holding bowl with your meat. If you've been browning your meat in a pot, you can probably just drop the onions in and all the fond will come up. If you're doing in pans, you probably wanna drop in a little bourbon from the bourbon on the rocks you should have been drinking to deglaze it so it all comes up. if you've never done it, deglazing is when you throw liquor into a pan, which will losen up all the fat stuck to the bottom. just dont be a moron with your head over the pan.
Once it burns out, drop in your onions and start cookign them until they're transluscent. Once they start getting near there, drop in your minced garlic.
While those are cooking, you take a small parn, turn it on low and pour in your chili powder to toast it. This really brings out the flavor a lot more, even in shitty store brand powders (I havent done it yet, but i intend to make my own soon) Once it is warmed but not burned, dump it in the onions and stir it up into a paste.
Once you get that mixed up good, you want to drop in some of your chipolte in adobo.
![[image loading]](http://37days.typepad.com/my_year_of_living_veganou/images/2008/01/17/chipotle_in_adobo.jpg)
These badboys are awesome. Good heat but far from overwhelming and the sauce gives a great flavor. I believe I chopped up 4 really fine almost liek a paste and added a bunch of the sauce. If you're scurred of heat, do two, let it simmer for a bit (with the liquid in) and taste, add more as necessary.
Once you have all that mixed in there, it's time for the liquids. I think the original recipe called for one of those big bottles of double stout. I only had a small one that I drank a bit while cooking, so I took it and mixed it with some other really dark black beer that had a vague coffee taste. I then added beef stock until the meat was near submurged, and then a little bit of coca cola to top it off and give a little sweetness to mask the bitterness of the beer and chocolate
the last thing you do is add your ghiradelli chocolate.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BjYsNnRl.jpg)
I didn't add a ton. Maybe 2 of the little sections broken up? Try that and add a little more later if you think it needs. It's a very subtle taste. It also makes the chili very dark.
Once that is all in, turn the heat down really low, just about the lowest it can go so it barely bubbles. Stir every 30 min or so. Ideally, you want to let it cook like this for 6-7 hours. That will allow it to fall apart how you see at the bottom and a majority of the liquid evaporates. The pic of how it looked like after 4-5 was really good too (I had it for lunch because I am an idiot who started it too late the night before)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/DDIm15s.jpg)
What it looked like after about 4-5 hrs of cooking. I was a moron and started it too late on wed for it to finish entirely. I turned it on in the morning (this was lunch before it was entirely finished) and made my roomate watch it til it hit almost 6.5-7hrs.
and turned to this
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/u4cUVV9.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/W4khxGVl.jpg)
Completely and totally different from yours... that's what I love about chili! Thought I'd share since yours is bookmarked to try when it cools down soon!
Anywho, looking forward to your next blog panda!!
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EPT
