Could have saved you a lot of time.

AustinAgChef said:

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2 lbs. chuck, diced
1 large yellow onion diced small
3 jalapenos diced small
1 head garlic minced
2 tbsp. tomato paste
1 large can crushed tomatoes
2 large cans tomato sauce
1 large tomato can of water
1 beer of choice (I used Shiner because I like cooking with it)
3 each dried ancho, New Mexico and guajillo chiles
2 each chile de arbol
1 tbsp. ground cumin
1 tbsp. ground coriander
1 tbsp. ground ancho powder
1 tbsp. ground chipotle powder
1 tbsp. chile powder
1 tbsp. paprika
1 tbsp. Mexican oregano
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
Kosher salt, to taste
Bacon fat, as needed

1. Remove stems and seeds from dried chiles and place in a small saucepot with enough water to cover them. Bring to a boil, place lid on pot and turn off heat. Allow chiles to steep for 15 minutes and then puree.

2. Season beef with kosher salt and set aside. Meanwhile heat some bacon fat in a cast iron skillet and brown meat in batches to ensure even browing. Remove from pan and set aside.

3. Once all meat is browned, drain excess fat out of pan and deglaze with about a 1/4 of the beer and scrape the bottom of the pan to remove the yummy goodness.

3. In a separate stockpot, heat about 3 tbsp. of bacon fat and add onions and jalapenos. Season with some salt and cook for 3-5 minutes and then add garlic and continue cooking for an additional 3-5 minutes being careful not to burn the garlic.

4. Once the aromatics have cooked, add meat and pan drippings to pot. Now add all of your spices and tomato paste. Let this cook for about 5 minutes to allow the spices and tomato paste to toast. Be sure to stir often to prevent burning of the tomato paste.

5. Once that spices have had time to toast, add the remaining part of the beer and reduce by half. After the beer has reduced, add your tomatoes, tomato sauce, chile puree and water.

6. Turn heat to low and allow the chili to simmer for 2-3 hours until the meat is tender. Adjust seasoning with salt to your liking and serve however you'd like.

If the consistency is too thick then add water a little at a time to get the desired consistency. If it is too thin, continue cooking down or thicken slightly with a little bit of masa harina mixed with water.

Also, if you want a spicier chili then add more cayenne and leave the seeds in the jalapenos.

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Yesterday was a cool winter day and Aggie basketball was on - what better day to make a batch of red? I decided to forego our usual recipe and use actual dried chile peppers for the first time, so I knew where to come for a recipe. I used AustinAgChef's recipe with just a few modifications.

1) I used 2lbs venison chili meat and cubed up a top sirloin for a little more meat. I like to have different textures of meat in my chili.

2) I add LOTS of veggies to our chili to add fiber and make it a little healthier. By dicing them all up fine everything cooks in and you can't even tell they are in there. We used two onions, a green bell pepper, a red bell pepper, and three stalks of celery. (I know, I know - CELERY in chili? But it adds texture and fiber and you can't even tell it's in there.)

3) We skipped the jalepenos because my wife is allergic to them. Next time I'll figure out some way to kick off the heat level a notch.

4) I added a few not-so-secret ingredients from our family recipe: a pinch of cinnamon, a spoonful of brown sugar, and a couple healthy dashes of fish sauce (learned that one right here on this board.)

Here are the ingredients (meat not pictured). I just used whatever tomato products were in the pantry.



Dry peppers purchased from HEB:



Using scissors, I removed the stems and seeds from the dried peppers and cut them up into smaller pieces. These went into a sauce pan and covered with water. Once it came to a boil I put a lid on it and set aside.





Chop chop while the meat was browning:



Make sure to sautee the veggies thoroughly. This is critical - if you don't get them nice and soft before you combine everything, they won't disappear into the mix as well.



To the veggies add 2 Tbsp tomato paste and your spices. Keep stirring to toast the spices - everything is smelling fantastic.



Meanwhile, the entire content of the saucepan with peppers goes into the food processor for a good puree:



Add it to the pot and stir it in. I added 1/3 of the beer and we let it cook about five minutes, stirring often.



Now everything else goes in - meat, tomato products, the all important Shiner Bock (best beer for chili!), chile puree. We simmered it on low for three hours until supper time. It was done before the three hours but the longer the better to help all the flavors come together.



Best. Chili. Ever.

Do NOT be intimidated by using dried chile peppers instead of chili powder - it was really easy to make that puree and your taste buds will thank you for the effort. Thanks to AustinAgChef for the recipe.

Copied and pasted from OB because I just saw this here and it's timely.


We had a freeze last week and I figured my peppers were goners, but they decided to pop out a big harvest this morning, so I was inspired to make chili



I'm growing jalapenos, habaneros, thai dragons, and ghost chilis

I grabbed a couple of small jalapenos out of the freezer, and grabbed one of my fresh ghost chilis. I chopped them (seeded and deveined the ghost chili) and added them to pasilla, guajillo, ancho, and arbol which steeped in boiling chicken stock for 30 minutes.





I browned a pound of freshly bow-killed venison with a bunch of garlic...



and a pound or so of leftover brisket...



I pureed the pepper and chicken stock into a nice chili paste...



to which all the meat, more chicken stock, salt, pepper, cumin, sage, mexican oregano, and bay leaves was added.

It's simmering away now for the next three or four hours until it reduced by about half.



The only dry ingredients in the chili are the mexican chilis and oregano, and the bay leaves. Everything else is fresh (or fresh frozen) from our garden.

I really like to add a bunch of tomatillos blistered under the broiler to this recipe, as I think it benefits from the bright acidity, but alas I don't have any.