Chili: It’s What’s For Dinner

It was grocery day yesterday, which means I’ve entered into a full week of cooking again, now that we’re all stocked up. We got a whole bunch of great stuff (except for flour, which I got from a helpful neighbor) and I’ve planned out a week’s worth of recipes to keep us fed and happy. It’s been a bit of a challenge adjusting to how much food to buy now that we’re stuck indoors all the time, but I think we’ve finally got the hang of it.

To start, last night I cooked chili. I really love chili, in all forms and types. Mine’s a little atypical, in that “chili purists” might not agree with everything I do, but nuts to them. I love making chili. It’s a great big old one-pot meal that only gets better each day it sits. To me, the ideal chili is somewhere between a meat sauce and a stew, chunky and hearty but still a bit flowy.

You might find this recipe a little loose, but that’s because chili is a great thing to interpret on your own terms. It’s a really good dish to pack with extras in your fridge and accepts just about everything you’d wanna throw in there. Got some extra meat? In the chili. Extra veg? In the chili. Got a nub of some cheese that you’re not sure how to polish off? Grate in on or melt it into the chili.

This is also one of those recipes you should read all the way through before you start. You know, like EVERY recipe. You’ll see why pretty early on, but it has to do with the critical step on cooking the onions. Most people don’t cook their onions long enough, and that goes for any long-cooking dish where a softened bed of onions is the first step towards deliciousness. You know who really knows how to deal with onions like that? Italian nonnas and Indian aunties. You know who doesn’t and needed to learn it in professional kitchens as a teenager? A little Jewish boy from the south of Ottawa who has a blog now. Suffice it to say, you’ll be starting those onions first, low and slow, before moving onto ANYTHING else. Don’t rush ‘em.

The other point of contention has to do with the ground beef. I don’t brown it. I don’t care what book or website told you to, it DOES NOT WORK. You throw your ground meat in the pot, crank the heat up and all the fat comes out, pooling and bubbling around the grind. This lowers the temperature meaning you get grey, boiled tough bits of meat, that never really get enough browned flavour to make it worthwhile. Skip trying to brown ground meat, and just flavour your chili so nicely you’ll never even miss it.

Even though I have heard the best recipe for chili is no recipe at all, here’s my chili recipe. It takes a few hours to simmer, feeds I don’t know how many people and is delicious:

Ingredients:

• 4-5 yellow onions, peeled and medium diced
• 6-7 cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly slivered
• 2 fresh bay leaves
• 1-2 carrots, peeled, halved and sliced into ¼” half-moons
• 3 stalks of celery, medium diced
• 1kg of ground beef, I like medium, you can use lean or extra lean, no judgement
• 8-10 button or cremini mushrooms, wiped if dirty and quartered
• 1 red/orange/yellow bell pepper, seeds and ribs removed, medium diced
• 1 jalapeno, seeds and ribs removed, fine diced
• 2 sprigs rosemary, leaves only, finely chopped
• 4 sprigs thyme, leaves only, finely chopped
• 1tsp celery salt
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 TBSP ground cumin
• A lot of chili powder, like 2 cups (see recipe)
• 1 796mL can peeled Roma tomatoes and their liquid
• 1 570mL can red kidney beans, rinsed (unless you like that bean liquid)
• Kosher salt, to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 cup grated old cheddar cheese (optional)
• ¼ cup Italian parsley, leaves only, finely chopped (optional)
• Sour cream, as needed (optional)

Method:

1. Heat a film of canola oil in a large, heavy bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Chop your onions and put them into the pot. Season them with a large pinch of salt, and then begin preparing the rest of your ingredients, stirring the onions from time to time. Let them cook, low and slow to get all the goodness out of them. It’s okay if they brown a bit, but keep an eye on them so they don’t burn, lowering the heat if necessary.
2. Add the garlic and bay leaves to the pot and stir them together with the onions. Let cook for 5-6 minutes, until the garlic has softened.
3. Add the carrots and celery, stirring together and letting soften, 5-6 more minutes.
4. Raise the heat to medium high and add the ground beef. Break it up, and stir to combine with the vegetables. Keep cooking and mixing it until little to no pink remains to be seen, then lower the heat back to medium.
5. Add the mushrooms and stir them around, allowing them to absorb the extra fat rendered from the meat, 5-6 minutes.
6. Add the bell pepper, jalapeno, rosemary and thyme, letting all the ingredients come together to a simmer.
7. Meanwhile, drain your beans, open the can of tomatoes and have it at the ready. Have your spices at hand. Season the pot with the celery salt, cayenne and cumin, then begin adding chili powder, about a half cup at a time. You want to add more than you might think, it’s chili after all. Keep adding and stirring in until the mixture in the pot looks DRY. I mean, you should be thinking that if you step away, it might burn because it’s so dry, that’s how much chili powder you should be using. Stir it all in, and let it cook for about 2 minutes.
8. Add in the tomatoes and their liquid, crushing each tomato with a wooden spoon and stirring to break them up. Stir down to the bottom of the pot, ensuring the tomatoes and their liquid get down there to almost deglaze the dried spices and ensure that burning I almost led you to never takes place.
9. Stir in the drained beans, and let the chili come up to a simmer. Once it has, lower the heat a bit, cover and let simmer for 2-3 hours.
10. Uncover the chili, and let cook uncovered for 20-30 minutes to reduce slightly. Taste and season with salt and black pepper.
11. Garnish individual bowls with grated cheese, chopped parsley and a dollop of sour cream, if desired.

This is a great make-ahead recipe that only gets better with time. There’s no season for chili, unlike some other stews or braised dishes you can have chili anytime of year, even in the summer, topping a hot dog. And if you’ve just gotten over a hangover, nothing beats leftover chili warmed up and stirred into freshly made KD.

As a final note, I’d like to tell everyone about a great new podcast that’s just aired its first episode. It’s called At the Pass with Adam Vettorel. Adam is the head chef and part owner of North and Navy, a real heavyweight in Ottawa’s culinary scene and an all-around mensch. I cannot recommend highly enough that you go listen to his podcast and support it. It can be found here on Spotify, on Apple Music or probably wherever else kids listen to podcasts these days.