Lean Mean Chili and Lots of New Cooking Gear
WARNING: This is not New Mexico chili (or “chile” as the case may be). However, it turned out to be darn good stuff, especially for something with “lean” in the title. I had some suspicions about the recipe when I saw bell peppers, but it turned out to be a very flavorful, tasty recipe despite the lack of green chile. And it fits into the New Year’s Resolutions category. Here’s the recipe from Food and Wine: Lean, Mean Chili.
Brief aside: note the beautiful new Le Creuset dutch oven at work in my kitchen. It’s a new addition to the cooking arsenal at Chez Abrams. I inaugurated it’s use tonight with this chili and love it already.
Ok, back to the cooking. As usual, I made a few changes to the recipe, although I generally love Food and Wine’s ideas.
1. The original recipe served 12, so I roughly cut down to 1/4 that quantity.
2. The recipe called for an absurd quantity of chili powder, 1/2 cup. That would be inedible in my book. I cut that WAY back and used about 2 teaspoons at most in my reduced quantity. The chili did not lack flavor.
3. I added a teaspoon of diced jalapeno, a couple dashes of Worchestershire sauce, and a little bit of this new Bueno Chile Shakers New Mexico seasoning my dad mailed to me today.
4. Finally, I added a dollop of low-fat sour cream to the scallions, red peppers and lime wedge in the recipe for garnish. I served the chili on white rice because that’s what they appear to do in the Food and Wine photo (and my husband loves it).
5. I cooked the chili for one hour at a very low temperature instead of the two hours called for in the recipe.
On the side I served warm flour tortillas. On to my next cool new piece of cooking paraphenalia, the tortilla warmer. I don’t know how I lived without this until my sister gave it to me for Christmas. A true staple in New Mexico, and much better than the piece of foil I’d been using.
Finally, we drank a 2004 Circle Springs Limestone Coast Shiraz from South Australia with the chili. Great match — it stood up to the beef and the fruitiness offset the spiciness of the chili very nicely.
Well, that’s it! Nothing short of a miracle, good chili that doesn’t contain green chile. I would definitely make this again.
Tagged with Beef, bell peppers, bueno chile shakers, chile, chili, chili powder, complete meals, dinner, dutch oven, garlic, jalapenos, le creuset, onions, red peppers, scallions, sirloin, sour cream, tortillas
Don’t you just love Bueno?!
This looks so great, I can almost smell the pic. All ingredients I can find out here.
Love the Bueno! Good thing my parents keep shipping it to me here in Minnesota — keeps us warm!