BEER...in chili

last chili i made had tecate in it, and sausage and beef. thickened with masa flour. perfect.

I never put water or sugar in chili. I make it in the crock pot with fresh tomatoes, whatever beer's on hand, tomato paste, cubed sirloin, ground sausage (not the sweet kind), fresh onions, fresh garlic, chili peppers, one dried habernero, cilantro, tomato paste, cumin, chili powder, worcestershire sauce, tomatilloes (if I have them), and just crock pot it all day and (if I'm home) taste and adjust til it's done. Sometimes I use beans and sometimes I don't. Nothing's better than coming home in the winter to the smell of the crock pot chili wafting through the house! I like the beer in the chili!

Andrea

Juice from your beans...

I always use dark/brown Belgium beers.
I assume they're a bit more expensive or maybe a bit more hard to come by depending on you location (that being the US )

I am from the Netherlands myself which is a neighbouring country so easy to come by :)

But I'm sure you'll be able to get them.

This is one I often use.
http://www.merchantduvin.com/pages/5_breweries/westmalle_beers.html (see the "DUBBEL")

Others I use are:

"Grimbergen Optimo Bruno"
"Leffe Brune"
"Rochefort 10"
"Westvleteren 12"

You can find these at http://www.kingdomofbeer.com/
Look at the Abbey beers and the Trappist beer(not the first page)

Apart from using them for cooking they are great for drinking ;)
But since most of these are 8% or 10% beers they're not for everybody considering that 'standard' beer is very popular and those...are weak beers.


I also add a cup of port wine

Welcome, Nembrionic...
How do you make Netherlands Chili? Are you American and in Europe, or are you a European chilihead?

quote:

Originally posted by bill voss

Welcome, Nembrionic...
How do you make Netherlands Chili? Are you American and in Europe, or are you a European chilihead?

European chilihead here
Dutch Chili doesn't really exist. The chili we have over here right out sucks. In all honesty: it doesn't even get close to any of the chilis served in the US or CAN. Generally speaking "chili" over here is considered to be rice, beans, beef and some spices.

So the only way to get one is to make it myself.
I basicly looked up a bunch of recipes over the years and started combining ingredients I liked.

I'm about to make my next one in a few hours and this time I'm going to add some tomatillos to it.

I'm a big fan of Virgil's BBQ Chili but reading this board a bit I'm not so sure that's a representative chili. But I prefer 'tastefull' chilis over searing hot ones.

Most important ingredient for me is the cumin. I can post my own recipe if you like? Although I doubt it'll be any different from some others posted here

I'm always up for trying new ones especially since there are so many different kinds.

Sure, we'd love to see your recipe.

quote:

Originally posted by bill voss

Sure, we'd love to see your recipe.

26 ounces of ground beef
8 ounces of diced bacon
2 pounds of beefsteaks
2 large chopped onions
8 chopped cloves of garlic
6 tomatoes, diced in 4 pieces
1 bottle of dark/brown beer (see post above)
1 cup of port wine
14 oz of beefstock
1 cup coffee(freshly made, strong)
1/4 cup of brown sugar
3 tbl spoon paprika
1 tbl spoon cumin seeds
1 tbl spoon cacao
2 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon chilipoeder
1 teaspoon ground koriander
1 teasppon ground cumin
14 ounces of black beans
1 can of kidney beans
splash of Chipotle sauce
4 Madame Jeanette chilis, finely chopped ( http://www.chili-balkon.de/thumbs/t_madame-jeanette.jpg )
4 Cabe Merah peppers, finely chopped ( http://www.indischkookboek.nl/images/bawang%20en%20cabe.jpg )

ground black pepper
salt
soy sauce
2 leaves of these: http://www.lenglez.net/old/2001/images/images2/laurier.jpg
2 of these: http://www.l-escargot.nl/images/kruidnagel.gif
250 grams of butter



Part 1

First, I heat the butter and sear the beef steaks in it.
Then add big splash of soy sauce, the 2 "unnamed" ingredients, salt & pepper.
Add water until the beef if submerged.
Let it simmer on the lowest possible heat for about 3-3,5 hours till
meat falls apart when pricked with fork.
Take out the beefsteaks and make small bits with a fork



Part 2

- Sauté onions and garlic in oil in a large pot
- Add ground beef. Cook until nice brown.
- Add the bacon.
- Add rest of ingredients
- Add the beefsteaks from part 1
- Add 1 cup of gravy from the beefsteaks (keep rest of gravy for potatoes or whatever)
Let simmer for hours at end. Stir every now and then. Make sure you have enough cumin.

Serve with a bit of extra Chipotle sauce and Jalapeno cornbread and a nice beer (one of them Belgium ones )

I have to calculate to ounces and such but I think I got them right

Ofcourse you're free to add any kind and amount of peppers

I've been cooking competition chili for the past two years, and beer if definitely a no no in competition. It leaves a bitter taste that judges usually pick up immediately. It also leave the chili with an aroma that is widely compared to old socks.
Two weeks ago I cooked in an ICS competition in Snowshoe West Virginia and one chili made it to the finals table in which the cook had included a Killians Red, and a cup of Captain Morgans rum. I'm not real sure how this batch progressed to the finals. Some friends and I went around after the event was over to check out some competing chilis and picked out this dog right away. The smell was awful, and we circled around it daring each other to taste it. No one would.

Re: Beer in Chili - see other thread for discussion of Chile in Beer.

quote:

Originally posted by Grillmeister

Bushie's right. Using beer for "the recipe" is what you tell your wife when you walk in with a case of Bud.
I use plain water in my chili and let the spices do their thing. You'll know you've done it right when your bowl of red develops a soul of its own.
Now, pash me shum mo of dat Lone Schtar burr.....

Just to clarify my older post: Yes, I use WATER because you have much more control. Using vegetable juices is fine, but you don't have the control. My recipe uses basically the same ingredients as most vegetable juices except I dictate the amounts (tomato, spices, etc). Why let the factory who canned the stuff do that instead of you?
BTW: save the beer for drinking!

Beer? Sorry. Not where Chili was invented. On the Texas cattle trails. That's where I'm coming from. I'll get to that. For many of us where I come from Chili is important. Although I was born in New Orleans (and no, we DON'T say "Nawlins". Its "Noo ORE-lenz", thank y'all very much.)I was raised in and around Texas and Chili is something we can only live with for a matter of days before we die of blandness. And good chili, REAL chili, is a LOT more than just HOT! Its savory, tomato-y, slightly sweet and has a good Cumin kick and it SHOULD have a spoonful of Masa Harina (Mexican cornmeal) mixed in. And never, never, never BEANS!!!
If you've GOT to have something that will give you greasy gas, eat a bowl of pintos on the side. If you do eat beans in your chili, please sit down wind from the rest of us.
Okay, to make it simple, go to the Supermarket. Buy one of those little brown sacks of Carroll Shelby's Chili Makin's. (Shelby's a former racecar driver who created the famous "Shelby Cobra" hot rod!) Buy some extra cumin. Buy a packet of Pasilla Chili powder. Buy a can of tomato sauce. If you've got a little dab of brown sugar at home you don't need to buy any more (some folks use unsweetened chocolate, but that's pushin' it a leetle mite). The seasoning sack has enough Masa Meal in it, so you don't need to buy more. Go home, brown up a pound or two of ground beef. Add the extra cumin and the extra chili powder. Toss in a teaspoon of brown sugar, maybe more if you like. Simmer is all together and during the last twenty minutes add the Masa meal (put it in a cup and slowly stir water into it until it becomes a thick but pourable paste) and add it to the pan. NOW HEAR THIS, Y'ALL: You can and will do as you please. Throw in stuff til the cows come home. Whatever you like is what you like. But for the real deal, and that's what I was raised on, there are certain do's and don'ts. Some of the don'ts are VERY don't. To make it right and to make it simple, even if your sweet lil' ol' Momma from Minnesota used to do it, DO NOT put in GREEN (BELL) PEPPERS! NO CELERY. NO MUSHROOMS. NO CARROTS. NO CALIFLOWER. NO ASPARAGAS. NO BROCCOLI. NO SAUSAGE (Eye-Talian or otherwise). AND NO OREGANO (this ain't Italy, son!) And unless you want to end up with something that might taste good to your taste buds that ain't really chili, NOTHING ELSE!!! PLEASE!!! AND I'D BEG YOU NOT TO POUR A CAN OF BEER IN THE CHILI. If you like beer, drink a couple while you make the chili and have a couple while you eat it. Chili is a minimalist thing. History: Real Chuck Wagon cooks didn't have much to put in their trail chili. Just beef, dried chiles (red) and maybe some hot red peppers, cumin seeds (Crushed with a rifle butt) and they probably didn't use tomatoes. Their chili turned red from the Chiles as they cooked into the meat. (Chile is a type of pepper grown in New Mexico. Chili is a meat stew. K?) And branch water. And salt and a pinch of raw sugar, maybe. Nothing else. And their chili was probably so strong and so gut-punchin' we fat and lazy city slickers probably couldn't handle it. So...that's all I got to say about that.
Then, toppin's: If you're from Louisiana, make a pot of rice. You know what to do with it (ladle the chili over the rice). If you're from Texas, don't. You might cook up a pan of cornbread. Mmmm. Dice up some yeller onions. Open a can of chopped Chiles. Grate some rat trap cheese. A splat of sour cream. And leave the beans in the can in the cupboard! Only My Yankee Brethren who eat that termeter soup they call chili in diners in Racine, Wisconsin eat crackers on it. Restraint, please.

After you make it with like this a few times, you'll throw the Carroll Shelby Chili Makin's away and start doin' it yourself. You'll tinker with it and sooner or later, like everybody else...your's will be "The Best Chili" in the world! (Yeah, like everybody's a 1/4 Cherokee!) LOL!!!
See Y'all in the kitchen!
CB

As a chef I have developed over the years what I consider a great chili.

Red Chile Sauce
4 ounces whole dried new mexican red chilies (preferably Chimayo)
2 ounces whole dried ancho chiles
2 ounces whole pasilla chilies
2 cans chipotle chiles in adobo
1 teaspoon adobo sauce
2 quarts water
1 lb roma tomatoes, blackened
1 large white onion, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
5 cloves garlic, roasted,peeled,chopped
1 teaspoon cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons Mexican oregano
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lard
1 cup chicken stock (or more as needed)
Chili
1 quart red chili sauce
1 quart samuel smith's nut brown ale
1 quart beef stock
1 quart tomato sauce
1 can las palmas medium enchilada sauce
lard
12 lbs beef chuck, 1 1/2 inch cubes
3 white onions, diced
1/2 cup masa corn flour
10 poblano chiles, roasted,peeled,seeded
10 red bell peppers, roasted,peeled seeded
4 tablespoons cumin
4 tablespoons Mexican oregano
2 tablespoons instant minced garlic (or 1 T garlic powder)
2 tablespoons black pepper
2lb of your favorite sausage

Red Chile Sauce---------.
Stem and seed chiles, roast at 250 for 3- 4 minutes.
Add to the water in a covered pan and simmer for 20 minutes.
Cool.
Blacken tomatoes under broiler.
Saute onion in oil over low heat until browned.
Put tomato, onion, garlic, chiles, cumin, oregano, adobo sauce and salt in a blender.
Add stock and puree to a fine paste.
Add lard to a skillet and heat to almost smoking.
Fry sauce at a sizzle for 5 minutes.
Do not allow to get too thick.
Add more stock if necessary.
Extra can be frozen and use for any Mexican/Southwestern recipe whic calls for red chile sauce.
For CHILI--------.
Place chile sauce, ale, beef stock, tomato sauce and enchilada sauce in large stock pot and let simmer for 20 minutes.
Brown meat in lard in cast iron skillet.
Saute onion in same pan to brown.
Place meat and onion in bowl and sprinkle with 1/2 cup of masa.
Add to stock pot including accumulated juices.
Add peppers to stock pot.
Add spices to stock pot.
Simmer slowly until meat is tender.
Correct seasoning.
Add sausage.

Here's my favorite - As others it varies based on my mood and what I have on the shelf and in the fridge.

4 tablespoons Olive oil
5 pounds Boneless chuck (lean)
2 pounds Pork butt (lean)
2 Med. onions -- coarsly chopped
4-6 Cloves garlic -- minced
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon Black pepper
12 ounces Beer (Porter or Stout)
1 quart Tomato sauce
4 cups Stewed/chopped tomatoes
1 bottle Spicy V-8
1 can Chipotles in Adobo Sauce (puree in blender)
1 teaspoon Allspice
4 tablespoons Fresh ground cumin
2 1/2 tablespoons Chili powder
1 ounce Soy sauce
1/2 ounce Whiskey
1/2 cup Dried Ancho chili peppers
1 tablespoon Habanero or favorite Hot sauce
1/2 cup Tomato paste
1/3 cup Masa harina


Heat the olive oil in a heavy skillet.
Cube the meats into 1/4 inch cubes and cook in the olive oil with the onions, the garlic, salt & black pepper.

In a large stock pot bring the beer to a boil.
Add the meat mixture, tomato sauce, tomatoes, bell pepper, allspice, cumin, chili powder, soy sauce, and whiskey.

Reduce heat to medium and cook for 10 minutes.
Add the dried peppers, Tabasco sauce, tomato paste, and salt as desired.

Stir in the masa harina slowly and cook a bit. Cover after stirring well and cook for 1 hour, stirring every 10 minutes. Serve hot!

This recipe makes enough for 12-20 people.

quote:

Originally posted by Sasaku

What's the best beer to put in chili?

Chili boy, your cowboy argument, though interesting, is false.
The cowboys on the Texas trail did not "invent" chili. Meat stews using the chili pepper dates back to 17th century natives of the southwest, and they used venison....not beef.

The trail users, you mention, did make a chili, but they didn't cook the meat in the pots. They used dried beef, fat, pepper, salt and chilis and made bricks out of them to carry the dried food along the trail. Then, they'd heat it up. the fat would melt down to create the stew like effect. no corn meal in that recipe, and no cumin.

Chili in the 1860's was also available in the prisons by cooking the cheap tough meat in water and spices until the meat was edible.

From there, Chili EVOLVED into what Texans and other American eat and call "Chili." From Texas to California to Cincinatti to New England, it's ALL chili.

So, since chili has evolved and likely improved upon from its original form, I say, if it tastes good, put whatever you want in your chili.

There is nothing wrong with a little beer in chili. I like either a bottle of Fat Tire or Cave Creek Chili (the beer with a chili pepper in the bottle.)

Hello All,
I never thought of putting beer in chili until this thread.
I tried it once, twice, even a third time, and decided it just
didn't work for my taste.
I, like sasku and Dante, would like to know if there is a best
beer to put in chili?
Has anyone ever put pot in chili? Not that I am proposing that?
I just remember in my youth that brownies were flavoured with that
additive.
I am not promoting it, just wondering?
Take Care,
Fieldthistle

I let the tomatoes provide the liquid. If that is not enough, then add set aside bean juice. (Yes, I use beans.)

I prefer to add the beer while I eat the chili.

quote:

Originally posted by Fieldthistle

Hello All,
I never thought of putting beer in chili until this thread.
I tried it once, twice, even a third time, and decided it just
didn't work for my taste.
I, like sasku and Dante, would like to know if there is a best
beer to put in chili?
Has anyone ever put pot in chili? Not that I am proposing that?
I just remember in my youth that brownies were flavoured with that
additive.
I am not promoting it, just wondering?
Take Care,
Fieldthistle

Fieldthistle,
you're not in Colorado right now are you?

I don't think marijuanna in the brownies was really for flavor.
I think it's more for effect...or affect...

I usually use an amber, something that will add a little sweetness to chili. Beer and a little honey. A little sweetness to a batch of chili really rounds it off nicely.

quote:

Originally posted by NYNM

Re: Beer in Chili - see other thread for discussion of Chile in Beer.

Good one....