I am ready for a new chili recipe to rock my world. My craving hit an all-time high last Thursday which had me searching for the perfect recipe until the wee hours. I have an old standby loaded with ground beef, black beans, roasted poblanos, more chiles, all kinds of spices, tomatoes, good beef stock and about a million other ingredients. It’s really tasty, but I wanted to try something new. Cooking shouldn’t be a Julia Child version of Groundhog Day where the same recipe gets made and eaten over and over again. Yawn, boring, blah.
Five hours later, I discovered that chili has two distinct camps: the staunch traditionalist and everyone else. The everyone else is a complete wuss by traditionalist standards. The complete wuss makes chili that isn’t hot enough, authentic enough AND they add beans. The horror!
The truth is I like beans in my chili. I like the body and toothiness. I also like the idea of chunks of beef (instead of ground) simmered until it practically shreds – the way traditionalists do it. This recipe has a beef-to-bean ratio of 75/25. Mostly beef with just a smidgen of beans to make me feel like a modern day cave dweller. The real secret is in the sauce. It’s a heady blend of dried ancho chiles roasted in my cast iron skillet and ground into a fine powder with dried chiles de arbol, cumin, cocoa and oregano, similar to a mole. With the exception of the beans, the chili maintains its fundamentalist dignity. It isn’t compromised by a crazy improvised mash-up of corn, bell peppers, and an overload of muddy spices. I made one minor adjustment though: I added a ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper because…I’m no wuss….
Roasting dried ancho chiles gives them a deep smokiness
Mole-inspired chile paste
