Oh Chili, Our Chili

Posted on | January 8, 2010 | 4 Comments

chili and cornbread

No photos. There’s no time, sorry, maybe I’ll try for later when it’s actually done. I’m hoping for leftovers. Guesstimating the amounts below because we—hubby and I—just got happy with putting ingredients in the crock pot.

1 very large sweet onion, diced
half a head of garlic, finely minced
1 tbs. olive oil PLUS an undetermined amount of bacon grease (it was added when I wasn’t watching)
1 1/2 lbs.-ish flank steak, cut in thin strips across the grain

Heat the oil on medium low and saute the onion and garlic until they sweat and tell you everything but won’t admit to how much bacon grease your husband introduced them to.

Increase the temperature to medium-high and add the meat. Saute until browned and steel yourself from the dog’s looks. Don’t feed her; it does awful things to her system and your home’s air quality.

Into the crockpot go the meat and onions and garlic.

They will be joined by:

2 small bay leaves
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 1/5 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. ancho chili powder
1 tsp. chipotle chili powder
something like 3 tbs. cocoa (it was whatever was at the bottom of the tub)
1 can of black beans
2 cans of diced tomatoes
1 small can of tomato paste
2 tbs. of brown sugar
sea salt and pepper

Let it cook for about 6 hours while you endure the dog’s love and attention.

Six hours is a long time. When it’s all over, I’ll report how it went and if a certain someone snuck in anything else besides bacon grease.

Update

It was very good. It was a tiny bit spicy to me but any spicy is too much spicy to me. I think it would be fine with just half a can of tomato paste. Hubby says next time we use a different cut of meat, one that is more likely to just melt in the mouth. Flank steak is too stringy? I don’t know, I don’t necessarily agree and thought it fine as it was. We only heated it for about 4 hours all told then set it on warm. Next time we will put it on the crock pot’s lowest setting. We’ll have to see how it tastes today since chili is always better the next day (or more spicy!).

The verdict? Our meat and potatoes eater says “oooooh!”:

chili ooo

CORNBREAD

2-3 tbs. butter
3/4 c. sugar, white
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 c. flour, all purpose
1 1/2 c. corn meal (bought bulk kind, it’s not as finely ground as the boxed)
3 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 tbs. melted butter
1 1/2 c. buttermilk (used the equivalent in powdered+water)

Turn oven to 400 deg F.

While the oven is heating, melt 2-3 tbs. butter in a 10-inch cast iron skillet.

Beat together sugar and eggs. Mix dry ingredients together. Pour the remainder of the ingredients into the dry and gently mix until just moistened.

Make sure that the melted butter is coating the bottom and sides of the skillet, carefully swirling it all around. Pour in the batter and bake for 30 minutes. Half way through, you might want to turn it so that it browns evenly on all sides.

Serve with butter and honey.

Our carb eater:

mmm corn bread

Category: Foodie Stuff
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Comments

4 Responses to “Oh Chili, Our Chili”

  1. John Carney
    January 8th, 2010 @ 11:00 pm

    Oh, my. I will have to try this.

    Tonight, however, I have an eye of round roast in the oven, using the recipe from “America’s Test Kitchen” on public TV. You salt the roast and wrap it up overnight, then brown it in a skillet, then cook it very slowly in the oven (in fact, you bring it to 115 degrees by probe thermometer, then turn the oven off and let it coast the rest of the way to medium rare). It turned out very well the first time I tried it.

  2. phisch
    January 8th, 2010 @ 11:10 pm

    John, the house smells so good right now. I’m going to make cornbread in the cast iron skillet to go with this because it’s a requirement when it comes to chili.

    Hubby tried it a while ago and said it was better than the chilis at the last cook-off we had at church…if he does say so himself ;)

    I’ve never made a roast in the oven, just in a crock pot in those bags like you recommended (eons ago!). The last time we did salt something for a bit it was a whole chicken which hubby bbq’d. It looked awful, the skin was charred but it was probably due to a flare-up. We stuck with it, however, and were very well rewarded. I should have posted about that because we used a gadget like the one you bought (again, eons ago!) that lets you roast with a soda can in the bird only it’s made for a bbq and you don’t need a can at all. The thing is amazing and if it weren’t below 20 degrees outside hubby would be bbqing right now.

  3. John Carney
    January 9th, 2010 @ 7:37 pm

    If you’re ever in Tennessee, on I-24 going toward Chattanooga, you have to stop at the Lodge Factory Outlet in South Pittsburg (no “h” on the end of this one). It’s at the Lodge Manufacturing plant, the only place in the U.S. that manufactures cast iron cookware. They have pretty good prices on everything, but then they have a side room with factory seconds at considerably lower prices — and you usually can’t tell from looking why any given piece is a factory second.

    South Pittsburg, because Lodge is their main employer, puts on the National Cornbread Festival every year. I’ve never been, but I’m going to make it one of these days. A woman from Shelbyville was a finalist in the cornbread cookoff one year — there’s a big cash prize, plus a really nice oven.

    Lodge also has a factory outlet store up in Sevierville, on the way to Pigeon Forge and Dollywood, but IIRC that one only has the first quality merchandise, not the factory seconds.

  4. phisch
    January 9th, 2010 @ 9:46 pm

    We’re going to have to do that one day. I think Alton Brown visited the Lodge factory during his show on camp food. I know it’s heavy but things cooked in cast iron just taste different.

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