Iconic food: chili

Ok, now I KNOW I'm gonna step on toes with this one. Here you have this Italian guy, treading on one of the sacred foods of Tex Mex and Mexican cooking. I have written about European "canonical" foods and how trying to find "the" definitive recipe is impossible. That's true for chili, which is unarguably an iconic American food. EVERYONE has eaten chili. EVERYONE who cooks thinks theirs is the best. And every single one of them is different.

What is chili? Oi, that gets into a Buddhist kind of thing about "what is desire?" or "what is true love?" The more I have investigated the underpinnings of chili , the more I realized that there was much I would never figure out. One thing I DID learn, early on though: if you are calling it "chili con carne," or if you are adding beans to it, you are NOT making chili. At its most basic, chili is meat, with seasonings. I guess you could argue that it's a way to cook up meat when you have it, and make it last. Fat and spices help to keep decay and mold away from food, and there's both in chili. And it cooks up in large bunches, in a reasonably short period of time. And of course, it permits bulking up if you like. Adding beans to it does that. So, too, does putting it over rice, or noodles ("Cincinnati style," I'm told. Now there's a sign of canonical food. Try to connect Cincinnati and Tex Mex. The dots don't line up). But at its purest, chili is just what I said: meat, spices, seasonings, fat.

I have always made , to be honest, piss poor chili. This year, I tried something new. I looked and looked until I found the most minimal recipe I could. I even had to add things to this recipe, like fat. The recipe called for sauteeing meat and onions, but didn't say HOW to do it. And beyond onions, garlic, meat, it has chili powder and cumin in it, salt, and water. That is it. Try it.

The final product here is remarkably tame, given the amount of seasonings. It DOES have a bit of a kick, but much less than I thought it would. You'll lprobably need to buy some spices for it.

This makes a generous quart of chili. You can cut it back by half, but why do that?

You start with four pounds of ground meat, and four cups of chopped onions. That's about 5-6 medium sized onions. Get ground chuck if you can. Something about 85% lean. Anything leaner like that is probably going to give you chili that is too dry for your taste. Get GOOD meat too. I used grass fed, which at 7 bucks a pound, makes this a not inexpensive dish. You're worth it though.

Also, measure out six TABLESPOONS of chili powder (I used pure ground ancho) and 6 TABLESPOONS of ground cumin . That, incidentally, is about a third of a cup of each. Yeah, it's a lot. Don't worry.

If you can get canned chipotles in adobo, chop about three of them, and then freeze the rest (these will go bad in the fridge, and you don't want to lose them. Use them to spice up something else). Now, you're ready to cook. Really.

Get a heavy duty dutch oven, and slick the pan with olive oil. Add the onions and the meat, cold. Turn up the heat to high, and start turning the meat and onions. You want to cook this until the red is gone from the meat. It will take just under ten minutes. When the pink is gone, stir in the spices and the chipotle. Also add about a scant tablespoon of salt. Stir that all together and cook, for about three minutes. You can also add 6 or so chopped cloves of garlic to this. You don't have to. After the three minutes, add five cups of water. Lower the heat to medium low, partly cover the pot, and go away for ninety minutes. Come back every now and then to stir it and to check the liquid. Mine was wet enough up until the l ast ten minutes or so, when it began to crackle. At that point, I could have either added more water, or kept stirring it. I did the latter.

Over the course of the cooking, the color changes from a bright orange red to this wonderful brick red color that permeates the whole dish. The seasoning is such that I would say a half cup portion is plenty, especially if you add a starch like rice, or grated cheese, or sour cream, or all of t hose things. Add some chopped jalapenos if you like and your hot sauce of choice.

This is really something really, REALLY easy to do. And it makes a lot. And look at that recipe, if you would. Does it seem very fatty? It's not. You can it as rich as you like with additives, but that's up to you.

Now, go and get some ground meat, and make some chili. I THINK you could substitute some ground pork here if you like, but I haven't done that. I'm saving mine for stuffed cabbage.

Yes, folks, winter is around the corner. No more fresh strawberries. Lots of applesauce and baked pears, and dishes like this.

Superbowl party, anyone? :)