Chuck – Candy Cane Chili

Ho, ho, ho… ’tis the season to scamper ’round the neighborhood and gawk at ostentatious Christmas light displays.  In my neighborhood, folks go all out. Hundreds of man-hours. Thousands of lights. Displays that reach five stories high in some houses. But not, needless to say, in mine.

We’re having friends over for a pre-gawk meal. It’s December, so chili is a lovely option. We’ve done chili several times on these pages, so today I want to try something different.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from cooking cow parts for a number of years now, it’s that you can always trust a recipe from a random dude on the internet. I Googled “Best chili ever,” and I was off and running.

If said random internet person also claims to have seen Bigfoot, all the better.

And so, in that spirit, I culled a recipe from here. And I have to say,  it did look like a damn fine chili recipe.

However, it would take all day to make. At 8am the day of the Candy Cane Laning, I get started.

This recipe calls for ground chuck, chuck roast, and pork chops. I sub in ground beef, because the ground from my steer isn’t differentiated into primals. Chuck roast and pork chops are easy enough to come by, however.

chuck steak.

Pork chops and ground beef.

This recipe appears to be of the Grab-Everything-Delicious-And-Throw-It-In-A-Pot variety. Not a bad thing, just something to note.

Mise is huge:

tres grande

However, the recipe is fairly simple. Brown the meat for some maillard-y goodness:

Sweat your aromatics:

Add everything but the beans and tomato paste, then realize your cooking vessel is too small:

Sub out for the ten quart behemoth you usually save for brewing beer:

Giant pot

Simmer and cover for six to eight hours.

Then, if you’re me, you wait three hours and realize you should have been doing this uncovered the entire time, because the liquid isn’t reducing at all, and really you’re making a watery stew.

Note that guests will be here in a few hours. Curse liberally.

I uncover the pot and goose the heat, as I’m trying to make up for lost time. I’m not worrying about the meat being cooked at this point, but I am concerned that it’ll be a spicy tomato soup.

Slowly, it reduces. My guests arrive. I distract them with scintillating conversation while I keep the flame high on the chili.

Pretty, though.

Finally, an hour or so after I’d anticipating eating, we serve it up.

In keeping with the theme, I forget to add the beans and tomato paste.

Bowl o' red.

For subsequent servings, I add the tomato paste and beans. The brew, lovely unadorned, is improved tremendously by these additions.

Verdict: Despite my slack-jawed bumbling, the chili turned out well. Good ingredients and lots of time forgives many sins. A lovely fortification against the Southern California “cold.”

The Wife Says: Super spicy, super tasty. (The heat was tamed with the later addition of the tomato paste and beans.)

What I Learned: Do not cook on autopilot. In my head I was thinking “braise,” but liquid needs to reduce. Don’t use a lid, dummy.

Up Next: What Would Jedis eat?