Without.....It Ain't Real Chili

Wow. This is my first post here, but I've been looking around here for a while and you guys know your food. I thought I'd weigh in on the chili discussion.

I've had a recipe that I've relied on for several years - Tomato sauce, tomato paste for a thickener, a little cumin, creole seasoning, garlic, onion, a tiny dash of oregano, lots of cayenne, beef stock, stew meat, ground chuck or sirloin (drained), and Worcestershire sauce. Nothing else.

The nice thing about this chili is that it doesn't take too long to cook - at most, 1 hour. The ingredients don't need to simmer much, because everything's powdered. If you like the texture of the veggies (I don't, which is why everything I use is powdered), you can use whole tomatoes, sliced onions, garlic, and peppers, but it ups the cooking time to about 2-3 hours. I find that by using stew meat it adds a much richer beef flavor to it, and adding beef stock gives it even more depth without adding too much fat. The Worcestershire sauce adds a little heat of a different kind, but it adds a tanginess and depth that I like.

Incidentally, the reason CASI doesn't permit beans, etc., is that they're considered fillers - while they add texture, they don't add enough flavor to make or break the chili. This doesn't mean that beaned chili is any worse, it's just not suitable for judging. The judges want the unadulterated flavor of the recipe without anything to mellow it out, which beans will sometimes do.

To be perfectly honest, I've only found a couple of restaurants where I can honestly say I like the chili - I like the chili served at a place called The Longhorn in Dayton, OH, and there's some decent chili at a chain of places throughout Oklahoma (and Texas?) called the Santa Fe Cattle Co. Steak & Shake chili is okay, but I have to be in the mood for it.

quote:

Originally posted by rumbelly

Chili without beans is sloppy joes. Never eat it the same day as the flavours resolve each other in the fridge overnight. I also find chili powder like curry powder, it needs a good long cook or you taste the powder.

sorry but i MUST disagree--sloppy joes are basically sweet and sour loose meat.when chili is cooked ,as is it in alot of places--wrongly--like with ground beef--it may look like sloppy joes but to call it that is an insult to both these marvalous comfort foods.My chili "must haves"----chunks of meat not ground---peppers---lots of them and different kinds-green and red bells,jalapenos,seranos---what ever i can get---and cumin--lots of cumin with raw onions added at the last.As for beans----when i add beans i call it chilibeans not chili but i do like it!oh yeah---chili should also be thick--like so it will sit well in a freash tortilla!

quote:

Originally posted by tiki
chili should also be thick--like so it will sit well in a freash tortilla!

Another reason chili should be thick is so you can dip tortilla chips in it and scoop up lots of solids without having them run down the sides of the chip. It's ok if some of the base is a bit thin, provided there is a healthy proportion of scoopable goodness. If I don't feel like making cornbread, a bag of Fritos scoops or large white tortilla chips can go exceedingly well with chili. For the ultimate in topping/accompaniment, next time try sliced avocado in addition to your chopped onions, shredded cheddar, and sour cream. If your chili is nice and fiery, the avocado will be especially welcome. If this weren't the middle of July, I'd make a batch tonight. I may make a batch anyway!

quote:

Originally posted by Lone Star

Honestly brian, there is no reason to be insulting.

In my opinion it's not chili unless it has Gebharts chili powder in it. It is still a Texas based company that has been making chili powder since the late 1800's. And NO beans.

That is not to say you cannot have beans WITH your chili and cornbread, but we take our Pinto bean cooking as seriously as we do our chili.

Just cook a pot of Pintos along with your chili and layer them on your cornbread with chili.

Thank you Lone Star for telling that whipper snapper brianh off. Them was definetely fightin words. That boy needed killin, like they say around here.

real chili ain't got no damn beans.

My mother, who was from Appalachian Kentucky, made a soupy chili with ground beef, chili powder, cumin, onions, tomatoes, and pinto or kidney beans. The soupiness was welcome because it was always served with homemade cornbread or sometimes bread and butter, good for sopping up any leftover liquid.

This, to me, will always be the quintessential chili, though I have also become fond of the minimalist stuff served in Mexican restaurants, which goes by the name of "chili con carne", or, alternately, "carne con chili", and whose list of ingredients is pretty much summed up by its name.

And, growing up near Detroit, I've always liked the thick, beanless stuff that we put on coney dogs there.

Why don't the folks who use rice, noodles, spaghetti??? etc. in their dish just think up a new name for it? They certainly seem to be a creative bunch. Chili is meat and a smooth spicy red gravy. Thick with no beans or other stuff. Here in New Mexico we also eat a wonderful dish with green chile, yeah, chile onions, potatoes, tomatoes and hamburger. It is called green chile stew or if made with mutton then Navajo stew. It is not chili and we don't call it chili! We also eat spaghetti and meat balls. It isn't called chili either but somebody somewhere no doubt does.

"If you know beans about chili, you know there's no beans in chili."

First post here,
I'm not much of a chili fan, but I do make a mean batch of vegetarian chili. It has no meat, but a whole bunch of different beans: pinto, kidney, white, black, you name it. I made it for my sister-in-law who can't eat meat, but everyone at the party said it was great. I have made the same dish many times since, always to rave reviews.
So my answer to the initial question is...without beans, it ain't real chili.
Jack

quote:

Originally posted by Ralph Isbill

"If you know beans about chili, you know there's no beans in chili."

Here is the definition that I follow!!!

Main Entry: chili con car·ne
Pronunciation: "chi-lE-"kän-'kär-nE, -k&n-
Function: noun
Etymology: American Spanish chile con carne chili with meat
Date: 1857 a spiced stew of ground beef and minced chilies or chili powder usually with beans

There you go! I make my chili this way most of the time use half ground beef and half hot sausage........yummy! You have to have twice as much meat as beans. I also make a chili that calls for beef chunks (very small...diced) and that is also good.

We always serve chili with crusty bread and a tossed salad on the side.
I have a friend that is horrified because she feels that it is one of the ten commandants to serve chili with chedder cheese and saltine crackers.
Another friend of mine serves it with cooked spaghetti stirred in.....oh my.....that is hard for me to even swallow.

quote:

Originally posted by joetank

My mother, who was from Appalachian Kentucky, made a soupy chili with ground beef, chili powder, cumin, onions, tomatoes, and pinto or kidney beans. The soupiness was welcome because it was always served with homemade cornbread or sometimes bread and butter, good for sopping up any leftover liquid.

My mother, from W TN, made a similar dish--but she had learned it from a Hispanic family friend when we lived in New Mexico. I really on't remember the seasonings, but it was soupy, not too hot, and we ate it with buttered bread or rolls. Mom made her own chile powder from red chiles and used butter to keep from burning her hands when she was peeling the pods. That's where I learned that if the chili was too hot you could take a bit of butter and let it melt in your mouth to insulate it.

Dearfolk,
My, my! I gotta hand it to you, Tiki: you hit home when you mentioned tortillas! Homemade flour tortillas are a natural go-together with either Texas-style (beanless) chili or New Mexico-style chile. Yum, yum!
There's a restaurant in Atlanta that makes a white bean chili, using a large amount of garlic, quite a bit of ginger, and who-knows-what-all-else. I've gotta get over there to try it (it's somewhere in the Flat Shoals Avenue, S/E area). I think the meat they use is either chicken or turkey... that would stand to reason.
While I have seen Gebhardt's Chili and Chili Powder here, it's been awhile ago. Guess I need to go looking again. My late father wouldn't use anything else in his "stooch." Boy, was it good!... thank God he wrote down the recipe. Now if I could only find it....
ChiliGothically, Ort. Carlton in 1801-Vintage Athens, Georgia.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the reputedly "BEST" chili in the United States...CHASEN'S. I've read about this legendary chili so many times...how Elizabeth Taylor had it specially shipped to her while she filmed "Cleopatra" overseas in the early '60s; how the Reagans served it at one of their big luncheons, etc. I've never had the privilege to taste this chili. Anyone tried it? Is it as good as they say? What makes it so great? (I know that Chasen's Restaurant closed in about 1995, but I think you can still buy the chili via mailorder.) I'd like to be enlightened by those of you who've tasted it for yourselves. Thank you, friends.

If this version is to be believed, butter and parsley must make the difference. Yeow! I'm not sure I'd agree with best in the world, but I'm intrigued enough to try making it. Maybe it was the butter that liz loved so much.
http://www.cooksrecipes.com/gmeat/chasens-chili-recipe.html

I have had chili all over the USA, some good a lot bad. The best has no beans cooked in it. Pinto beans served along side is great! In fact I think that I will go to the kitchen and have a bowl.

quote:

Originally posted by Al-The Mayor-Bowen

OK, Midwesterner's don't have the market cornered on Chili Recipes (although I am getting attached to their 'style').
What needs to be in Your favorite Chili?
I need to see/taste/smell--
Beans (pinto&kidney),
Meat (chunks not ground)--
Sauce (and here's where the individual tates seem to vary a lot-- Spice- I used to love superhot chili, now I tend to be looking for the broader flavor rather than the heat.
Peppers- More Jalopena than Habenero
Onion and Garlic- LOTS of it

OK What's Missing?

I don't like beans at all

quote:

Originally posted by chezkatie

Here is the definition that I follow!!!


Date: 1857 a spiced stew of ground beef and minced chilies or chili powder usually with beans

I think the start of this debate of beans vs. no beans dates about 1857

I must correct one fact......BOTH CASI and ICS do NOT allow beans in their chili.

I have cooked in these......I finally made it to the regional level and am competing Sun. Feb. 8. The winner goes to the World's!

Now, for ICS, when making Peoples Choice, you MUST add beans! Go figure.

I have a separate recipe that I enter in "local" contests...non-sanctioned events. It is made with ground beef and pinto beans. So far, never lost a contest! BUTTT, I have had some folks tell me it is not worth a darn! LOL Go figure!

Stogie

This is an excerpt taken from an article on the origin of chili found on theInternational Chili Society website.:

I know of only one Texan who has the facts straight on the origin of chili – Charles Ramsdell, author of an excellent history of San Antonio. It is clear from the delving, as well as my own, that chili con carne had its happenings in San Antonio. Was it a dish contrived by Mexican of old San Antonio de Bejar? No. Was it put together by white Texans? Not at all. You’d never guess in eight centuries. Chili was invented by Canary Islanders. In the 1720’s the Spanish were in command of the town, which they had founded, but the French were pushing in from the East and an appeal went out to the King of Spain to send some settlers. The king obliged half heartedly, shipping sixteen families out from the Canary Islands. They established themselves in rude huts on the spot now known as the Main Plaza. In their homeland, these people were accustomed to food made pungent with spices. They liked hot peppers and lots of garlic and they were acquainted with oregano. So they looked around to see what was available in foodstuffs in their new home and they came up with a stew of beef and hot peppers and oregano and garlic and, I make bold to believe, tomatoes and onions and beans. It is my guess, too that they managed to get hold of some cumin seed, which comes chiefly from North Africa. That’s the way it happened and any Texas historians who dispute me can go soak their heads.

Here's a link to the entire article.



http://www.chilicookoff.com/History/History_Started.asp

quote:

Originally posted by Edwaste

That’s the way it happened and any Texas historians who dispute me can go soak their heads.

Well, I'm fixin' to go soak my head because I disagree with that preposterous story!

quote:

Originally posted by Stogie

I must correct one fact......BOTH CASI and ICS do NOT allow beans in their chili.

Stogie, I know you'll think this is a dumb question, and I will definitely bow to your knowledge, because I've never cooked in an ICS event. BUT, ARE YOU SURE that ICS has NEVER allowed beans? I would bet almost anything that I've seen winning recipes on the ICS circuit that had beans and all types of other fillers.

I stand corrected if I'm wrong about that, but one of my buddies used to want to use an ICS recipe when we cooked at Chilympiad. He wanted to use veggies and beans. That's the reason we now have separate booths side by side.

quote:

Originally posted by Bushie

quote:

Originally posted by Edwaste

That’s the way it happened and any Texas historians who dispute me can go soak their heads.

Well, I'm fixin' to go soak my head because I disagree with that preposterous story!

A little bit about the person who wrote that preposterous story.

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/RR/fra25.html


I suppose you and clothier know more about Texas history than Mr. Ramsdell.

quote:

Originally posted by Edwaste


A little bit about the person who wrote that preposterous story.

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/RR/fra25.html

Ok then, if you're going to use FACTS, then I'm throwing in the towel!

I've been making and enjoying chili for so long I can't remember the origin of the recipe. I just make it, without really measuring anything. But I "taste, taste, taste" as Duncan Hines counseled.

A few years ago, I found that I liked a bit more cumin and the recipe evolved. I liked the green bell pepper some folks added to their chili, and now it's an ingredient in mine. Sometimes I serve the chili over spaghetti, and grate a bowl of cheese to go along.

If anything, chili is a wonderfully elastic dish that we rather enjoy individualizing. I very much enjoy the many small and large variations we apply to it. Tomorrow's chili will have those wonderully nutritious legumes and I will delight at the flavor a bite of bell pepper imparts.

quote:

Originally posted by bill voss

If this version is to be believed, butter and parsley must make the difference. Yeow! I'm not sure I'd agree with best in the world, but I'm intrigued enough to try making it. Maybe it was the butter that liz loved so much.
http://www.cooksrecipes.com/gmeat/chasens-chili-recipe.html

I think it's the Gebhardts. Gebhardts Kicks ass! I have found that a combo of Gebhardts and SChilling's chili packet make people swoon over anything I put them in...even lentils, even canned beans.

I noticed Chasen's chili in the freezer section the other day.

Bushie....

As far as I know they have never allowed beans. Here is the web site and the rules, check out rules number 1 and 10........

http://www.chilicookoff.com/Event/Event_Rules.asp

You can also check out the recipe site and you will find no beans in the winners chili from 1967 forward. This is also true of the CASI contests.

You may be getting the People's Choice winner mixed up. That chili can have basically anything in it.

You will also find that the winners never have any chunks of veggies...except some onion. It seems the judges look for a red sauce with chunks of meat only....everything else deducts from your score.

This is why I have a couple chili recipes I use at these events....one for judging and one for PC.

Stogie

Thanks Stogie, for clearing that up.

Yeah, I'm remembering something wrong. (Not unusual for me.) Thanks for the link!

That recipe my friend used was a contest winner somewhere out west. I always assumed it was an ICS event (we CASI types ALWAYS assume the worst about ICS). Now I realize it couldn't have been an ICS winner.

Since I like my chili Texas style, I always add a Texas Instruments calculator.

My whole point is to cast doubt that chili is of Texan origin. Because on this whole bean or no bean debate, is seems that Texans believe they are the sole authority on the subject, and what they say goes when it comes to chili. Texans did not invent chili, and did not invent barbeque. So they should stop telling everyone outside of Texas how to make it.

Every single one of you is ingnoring the reams and reams of peer-reviewed medical studies where doctors have confirmed that, indeed, beans, beans, they're good for your heart.

i just pity all y'all poor folks that think calling your bean soup chili makes it chili. Can't give away state secrets but this Texan uses venison & beer & Gebhardt's chili powder as the have-to-have ingredients and never, ever puts frijoles in the chili. If Texans didn't invent chili, they sure as hell perfected it. When that sad day occurs when i run outta venison (usually in march), i substitute beef . . . Luckily, i've never run outta beer or chili powder. Shiner(either Bock or Blonde) works equally well in cooking & in thirst quenching.

Vegetarian chili? Like Bobby Hill, that, boy, ain't right!

Being a BIG fan of both chili and sloppy joes, i have to say that if your sloppy joes taste, like chili with no beans then you are makeing a poor imitaion of sloppy joes. Nothing personal but sloppy joes are a "sweet and sour" dish---maybe be spicy too but definatley not chili. On my chili prference--being a new englander,where chili is not "native"-i am fortunate to have no childhood preference as to style so i get to like ALL the chili,s that are cooked all over the country. In my youth i hitched around america for several yrs and ate ALOT of chili and was always amazed at the variety but found that if its was cold and wet out---which it always seems to be if your far from home and hitchiking---ALL chili is good!