Friends from our church invited us over for a chili cook-off this past weekend, and both my wife and I made one. Hers was a longtime favorite recipe. Mine was something I invented the night before. I wanted to share, as well as save the recipe before it disappears from my brain.
For starters I wanted to use a few items we had already, in our garden and in our freezer. Only ground beef and beans is boring I say, and since we didn't have any already-made brisket on hand I decided to augment the meat with smoked pulled pork. It's one of my favorite BBQ treats and we basically always have some that just needs to be thawed. Then, our little garden (two, I dunno, 3'x4' raised boxes in our backyard) has produced a whole bunch of tomatoes again, as well as a variety of peppers. So I figured all of those two things would come exclusively from us.
I did this in a slow cooker so I could prep almost everything the night before then dump and go. This made for to stress about getting it done on time the day of and, well, stews are usually delicious when they've been cooking all day long.
It was definitely an experiment. I wasn't sure how the pork and beef combo would work. But I was glad I made it. Btw the recipe I started with and altered is here, from Damn Delicious.
Ingredients:
1+1/3 lb ground beef (mine was from Costco)
~8 oz smoked and shredded pulled pork - chopped
3 cloves garlic - minced
1 yellow onion - diced
2 jalapeno peppers (spicy) - 1 deseeded, both diced
1 poblano pepper (not spicy) - diced
1 'thunderbolt' pepper (not spicy) - diced
2+1/2 cups beef broth
16 oz red (kidney) beans - rinsed and strained
16 oz black beans - rinsed and strained
1 quart (32 oz) jar of my own canned tomatoes (Romas) - from a couple weeks ago
6 more fresh Romas tomatoes - diced
3 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp dried oregano
1+1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp chipotle tabasco sauce
salt and pepper
Quick version:
In a pan on the stove brown the ground beef, ~5 minutes
Dump everything in a slow cooker, stir, cook for ~8 hours
Serve with whatever you want on top, cheese, sour cream, fritos...
I intentionally chopped everything pretty small for this. Wanted the pork, peppers, onion, tomatoes, everything to meld together and fit well on the spoon when you're eating it. No big chunks falling off etc. It resulted in a nice even consistency I was happy with.
Like I hoped, there was some smokiness from the pork and from the tabasco sauce. I could've done a little more tabasco, potentially.
This had a bit of a kick, commented on by about many of the Minnesotans there. Most of us can't handle spice. Normally I wouldn't dream of leaving in any of the jalapeno seeds (my family is the norm around here) but this was an opportunity to go for it. I think this struck a good balance, it has some spice but wasn't overpowering either. I would deseed all the peppers if I make this again at home.
The only other change I would consider would be to get it a little thicker, but not by much. Maybe remove a 1/2 cup of broth?
Overall I thought it was really good and everything I'd hoped for. And the group agreed, I won the little competition that night (full disclosure there were only four chilis lol). Chili champion!
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