The only correct way to make and eat chili.
This is the story of my chili. There are many stories of people’s chili, and everyone claims that their chili is the best—or the most traditional. Nonsense; hogwash. The best chili is simply whichever chili has the most perfect mixture of ingredients and follows the most superior method.
THE MOST PERFECT MIXTURE OF INGREDIENTS
- onion
- garlic
- green bell pepper
- salt
- black pepper
- chili powder
- cumin powder
- cayenne pepper
- paprika
- ground beef
- dark kidney beans
- tomatoes
- saltines
- shredded cheddar
THE MOST SUPERIOR METHOD
This is the method of my chili. You can make your chili how you want to make your chili, and I will make my chili the right way. In fact, if you make this chili and still don’t think it’s the best of all the other chilis, I will send you—for free—a unique copper engraving of Abraham Lincoln. Now get your onions.
The first thing you need to do to make this chili is go gather all the ingredients. It doesn’t matter where you find them, but it’s important that you have them. Start by chopping your onion. Dice one large onion, or a few small ones, and keep them in a bowl for now. If you are patient enough to dice fresh garlic, you should do that now and set that aside as well.
The humble green bell paper is an understated star of this show; my wife says she doesn’t like green bell peppers, but she loves every dish I have sneaked them into. I cannot budge on the chili as it requires a green bell pepper for all its earthy bitterness. I do compromise and dice the green bell pepper very small, so it’s not very apparent, but my preference is to dice them into squares one centimeter wide so that they add more color in the dish. Alas, the compromises in marriage that dimmish culinary genius will never cease in necessity. For now, put the diced green bell pepper in a bowl and leave it off to the side.
Next you want to take your tomatoes—I usually choose Roma tomatoes because they’re cheaper and smaller, so you can get a whole bag of them, and they cut in half nicely; however, apparently, they are also great for making sauces so it’s a win-win situation—and cut them into halves and place them open face up on a pan that’s been greased with olive oil. Sprinkle over these tomatoes some olive oil, salt, and pepper, then spread a handful of those onions you chopped on top of the seasoned tomatoes. Put the pan in the oven at 425° for probably an hour; you will want to monitor them every 15 minutes to give them a stir. Once you see them starting to become blackened, that’s when you want to remove them from the oven. You could also achieve this same outcome by using the broil setting on your oven, but that prevents you from being able to walk away as much.
Growing up, I would use canned kidney beans and tomato sauce, so by using the fresh versions of these staples, I am elevating this dish beyond comprehension, and you will owe me thirty percent of the prize winnings if you enter this recipe into any competition—formal or informal. How you prepare your beans is not an issue with me, I use the quick soak method outlined on the back of the bag, where you bring them to a boil for two minutes then allow them to simmer for one more hour before putting them into your recipe; they are still not cooked after the quick soak.
A stainless-steel stock pot will be your best bet for combining all these ingredients; you do not want to use cast iron because the iron will react with the acidity in the tomatoes and create a metallic taste. If you have a cast iron Dutch oven coated with enamel, then that would be a fine exception to the cast iron exclusion.
Now we come to a divergent path in this recipe that wholly depends on how you manage your time. The beauty of my quick, 6-hour recipes is not the ease but the fact that you can take all day to finish them. The mere mention of chopping an onion will set your family’s sights on the clock, as they prepare to search the pantry for an alternative that they can heat up right before bedtime when you’re finally saying, “it just needs simmer for a while.” My usual course of action is to remove the pan of tomatoes from the oven and let them sit with the beans to cool off while I go into the other room and accomplish other tasks. But at some point, you will need to get back in here to move the process along or your family will never trust you again when you say you want to make chili; they’ll hem and haw and hesitantly go on about other ideas “maybe we should eat last night’s leftovers” and “I need to eat on time tonight so I can take my medicine.” It’s probably best to blend the tomatoes while they’re still hot anyway, so go ahead and scoop them into your blending jar or get out your immersion blender and get it done.
Drizzle some olive oil into your heated stock pot—or your enamel-coated Dutch oven—and drop in the chopped onions to get them nicely sautéed. You do want some caramelization on these, so don’t be afraid to let them get some color. Once they have some color, add your ground beef. I have not been specific on what types of ground beef to use because either will produce an acceptable result. The main difference is if you use a fattier mixture ground beef then you absolutely must strain it, or the chili will be too indulgent, and people will instinctively not want to eat much of it because of all the fat content. A very lean mixture of ground beef will probably not need much straining, if any at all. The flavor from the fat, which is the typical umami-related allure of beef, is not much of a consideration here since there is already so much other excitement happening in the stock pot.
When you have the hamburger halfway browned, add the garlic and green bell pepper, and continue to mix it all together until the meat becomes fully browned. Now you will pour the blended tomatoes into this mixture of hamburger, onions, garlic and green bell peppers, and mix it very well. Let it sit on a low, low simmer. We are not in a hurry anymore.
If you have not been having fun up until this point, I would understand; it takes a lot of work to make the most perfect chili. But I think this next part is the most fun part; it’s the pinnacle of making any chili: adding the seasonings. All your previous effort will be for naught if you do not pay careful attention here; this is why it’s acceptable to use premixed chili seasoning packet if you must—it won’t be my traditional chili, but you will not ruin dinner for your family. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to carefully add the most perfect proportion of the seasonings to the stock pot. I will outline here how I would proceed, but this is where art takes the wheel from science, and I can only hope that my pedagogy thus far has proven to be a worthwhile set of instructions to send you onward into chili bliss.
First, get your measuring spoons—all of them. Set the seasonings on the countertop next to stock pot of chili. Get some paper and a pen if you need to write things down to help yourself remember them; some people may also benefit from having a cheap stopwatch.
Take one tablespoon of chili powder and sprinkle it evenly across the whole surface of this amalgamation you’ve created in your stock pot. Take one teaspoon of cumin and spread it the same way. Now do the same with two teaspoons of paprika, one teaspoon of salt, and one teaspoon of ground black pepper. Finally, do the same with a quarter teaspoon of red cayenne pepper. Mix in these spices with the chili and let it simmer for five minutes. You almost always will need to repeat this cycle of seasonings, unless you’ve made a small batch. Before you add a new round of seasonings, use a small spoon to taste the concoction and determine if and by how much you want to adjust the ratios.
Conventional wisdom would’ve had you bloom the spices to extract more flavor, but I disagree, because we are going to let these elements marry for a long time and committing to seasoning levels so early in the process resticts the creative process from blossoming at the end. Don’t bloom—blossom. Now, of course, if we are working with fresh cumin seed, we would have toasted it in a frying pan to be crushed with a mortar and pestle, but we can’t drag this out too long when making a pot of chili for the family. When you complete the correct number of seasoning cycles, strain your dark kidney beans without using a strainer and pour them into the chili, then allow it all to simmer in the stock pot for several hours, or even a day. You will know when the time is right. You will feel it.
It is no secret that humanity has mixed chocolate and chili for thousands of years, but that doesn’t mean you have to put chocolate in your chili. Anyone adopting the new trend of adding a chocolate bar to a pot of chili deserves vituperation for abusing tradition. Eating the chili requires only a bowl and spoon, a sleeve of saltines, and some shredded cheddar. For maximum meltable enjoyment, shred your own cheese to avoid the anti-caking agent that covers store-bought pre-shredded cheese.
