Chili: Discuss

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Chili: Beans or No Beans

  • Beans

  • No Beans

  • What?

Results are only viewable after voting.
Also: Chili with elbow noodles is wrong. (Beanless) Chili with spaghetti noodles is pretty good.
Chili on rice is heavenly.
 
Dark red beans, no meat! And a nice pale ale. Simcoe/Chinook flavors complement smoked chiles, in my book.
 
ong said:
Dark red beans, no meat! And a nice pale ale. Simcoe/Chinook flavors complement smoked chiles, in my book.
Click to expand...

Chili with beans and without meat? I can hear all the chili purists' heads exploding right now. ;)

I make mine with beans and chunks of meat, onion, peppers, and tomatoes. Topped with cheese, sour cream, cilantro, and green onion. And most of the time I serve it over pan fried potatoes. So the chili purists can have their boring meat sauce, I'll eat the good stuff.
 
cilantro is the **** in chili, i normally cook it in but on top would be good too, gotta have meat tho, i do a mix of beef turkey and sausage :D
 
lowtones84 said:
Where is this definition of chili you speak of? I think it's hard to define a basic folk dish that has evolved so much over time. Isn't the full name "Chile con carne" which translates to chili with meat? If you have to be specific that it includes meat, might there not be versions that don't include meat? Does chili have to include tomatoes of some kind? Why or why not? Just throwing a little something into the pot ;)

As long as it's good and has a little heat I will eat it, beans or not!
Click to expand...

International Chili Society at [url said:
http://www.chilicookoff.com/Event/event_rules.asp]Traditional[/url] Red Chili is defined by the International Chili Society as any kind of meat or combination of meats,
cooked with red chili peppers, various spices and other ingredients, with the exception of BEANS and PASTA
which are strictly forbidden.
Click to expand...

I will admit though I've had some dang good chili with elbow macaroni in it, more of a side dish than the main event though. And I've had some dang good beany chilis. But I just like the simplicity of simmering meat in pulverized chile peppers, its kind of like the complexity you get from a good martini.
 
I don't think rules for a chili cook-off define any rules for something that predates an "International Chili Society," but I can respect a particular style that doesn't involve beans. Like I said I think both are good, but putting rules on chili is just silly. (Hey that rymed ;) )
 
BEANS! If I wanted to eat chili without beans, I'd move to Texas!

(Actually, I can eat beanless chili just fine. Everything in this thread so far sound awesome, except for that one troll who said no meat.)
 
I didn't realized (before this thread) that anyone ate beanless chili except on hotdogs....
Mine is very basic:
Browned ground venison (cooked with chopped onions)
Crushed tomatoes
Chili Powder
both red chili beans and hot chili beans
jalapeno
water

Everyone seems to really enjoy it. That being said, I am always up for trying new things (even if beanless chili does sound sacrilicious)
 
Chili

Basic Recipe
2lb ground moose meat (or caribou, sheep, venison or occasionally bison and sometimes bear)
1lb ground sausage (usually moose or caribou here)
1lb kidney beans
1lb pinto beans
1lb black beans
3 or 4 large tomatoes, rough chopped
3 or 4 medium to large onions, rough chopped
3 to 6 large cloves garlic, minced
Couple of quarts of meat stock, (usually homemade)
Jalapenos, Serranos and/or Habaneros
Cilantro, oregano, cumin, chipotle powder, chili powder cocoa powder, kosher or sea salt, fresh ground black pepper; all to taste. We grow many herbs indoors year round, so we try to use fresh cilantro and oregano.
I make 2 big pots of it, 1 is spicy and 1 is mild. Spicy gets the fresh chopped peppers, mild doesn’t.

Sort beans and soak overnight. We keep a lot of dried beans around.
Drain beans, split into two pots (we have 2 10qt stock pots) and begin cooking in the meat stock, just enough stock to cover the beans. We use the beans because it stretches the amount of chili we make and we like it. I do make a version of this with no beans for con Carne.
Brown all the meat well in a cast iron skillet with a bit of bacon grease, moose tends to be dry.
Remove the meat and sauté onions until starting to caramelize, add chopped tomatoes and turn heat down. Cook slowly and add garlic. I usually cook it until it is a dark brownish color, almost a paste.
Place ½ of browned meat into 1 pot and the rest into another. Split tomato/onion between both pots and add herbs and spices and cocoa to taste, in Spicy pot add ½ of your peppers.
Cook low and slow overnight or all day while at work. The rest of the peppers go in about 10 or 15 minutes before finishing.

When you get home, you fry up some fresh thick cut bacon in your cast iron skillet. While bacon is cooling mix up your favorite cornbread recipe, I will use box mix but prefer from scratch. When mix is near ready, crumble bacon into it. I have 3 cast iron skillets and I put some of the bacon grease into a 2nd skillet. In the first skillet I pour the bacon cornbread and then for the second I put some chopped peppers from above into it then pour into the 2nd skillet.

When the cornbread is near baked to perfection, I add the chopped peppers to the spicy chili pot and let it all finish about the same time.
Serve with sour cream, grated cheese, finely chopped peppers and onions on the side.

For a beverage, I will usually choose an Alaskan Amber, Midnight Sun Sockeye Red, Kassik’s Beaver Tail Blonde or whatever I have bottled from my stocks.
 
Subsailor said:
Chili

Basic Recipe
2lb ground moose meat (or caribou, sheep, venison or occasionally bison and sometimes bear)
1lb ground sausage (usually moose or caribou here)
1lb kidney beans
1lb pinto beans
1lb black beans
3 or 4 large tomatoes, rough chopped
3 or 4 medium to large onions, rough chopped
3 to 6 large cloves garlic, minced
Couple of quarts of meat stock, (usually homemade)
Jalapenos, Serranos and/or Habaneros
Cilantro, oregano, cumin, chipotle powder, chili powder cocoa powder, kosher or sea salt, fresh ground black pepper; all to taste. We grow many herbs indoors year round, so we try to use fresh cilantro and oregano.
I make 2 big pots of it, 1 is spicy and 1 is mild. Spicy gets the fresh chopped peppers, mild doesn’t.

Sort beans and soak overnight. We keep a lot of dried beans around.
Drain beans, split into two pots (we have 2 10qt stock pots) and begin cooking in the meat stock, just enough stock to cover the beans. We use the beans because it stretches the amount of chili we make and we like it. I do make a version of this with no beans for con Carne.
Brown all the meat well in a cast iron skillet with a bit of bacon grease, moose tends to be dry.
Remove the meat and sauté onions until starting to caramelize, add chopped tomatoes and turn heat down. Cook slowly and add garlic. I usually cook it until it is a dark brownish color, almost a paste.
Place ½ of browned meat into 1 pot and the rest into another. Split tomato/onion between both pots and add herbs and spices and cocoa to taste, in Spicy pot add ½ of your peppers.
Cook low and slow overnight or all day while at work. The rest of the peppers go in about 10 or 15 minutes before finishing.

When you get home, you fry up some fresh thick cut bacon in your cast iron skillet. While bacon is cooling mix up your favorite cornbread recipe, I will use box mix but prefer from scratch. When mix is near ready, crumble bacon into it. I have 3 cast iron skillets and I put some of the bacon grease into a 2nd skillet. In the first skillet I pour the bacon cornbread and then for the second I put some chopped peppers from above into it then pour into the 2nd skillet.

When the cornbread is near baked to perfection, I add the chopped peppers to the spicy chili pot and let it all finish about the same time.
Serve with sour cream, grated cheese, finely chopped peppers and onions on the side.

For a beverage, I will usually choose an Alaskan Amber, Midnight Sun Sockeye Red, Kassik’s Beaver Tail Blonde or whatever I have bottled from my stocks.
Click to expand...

That's my kind of chili! If I'm ever in your part of Alaska, I'm coming over for dinner. ;)
I usually make mine with venison, but switch to beef sirloin when I run out before deer season begins again.
I forgot to mention cornbread in my previous posts. Nothing like a nice thick piece of homemade cornbread with chili.
 
For me, chili has beans in it. Green chili does not.

For those who say beans are for vegetarians, etc. have never had some good ole' southern beans cooked all day in a cast iron skillet with a piece of smoked pig simmering in 'em.
 
lowtones84 said:
Where is this definition of chili you speak of? I think it's hard to define a basic folk dish that has evolved so much over time. Isn't the full name "Chile con carne" which translates to chili with meat? If you have to be specific that it includes meat, might there not be versions that don't include meat? Does chili have to include tomatoes of some kind? Why or why not? Just throwing a little something into the pot ;)

As long as it's good and has a little heat I will eat it, beans or not!
Click to expand...

It has evolved a lot over time. Beans are pretty standard nowadays but chili as we know it began as a meat/chili pepper stew that was served with a side of tortillas and beans by latina street vendors in Texas. Other chili like dishes were cooked before then but it was the chili queens version that was popular enough that Texas took it to the worlds fair. Shortly later they closed due to health code changes but by that time canned chili and dry chili mixes(with beans) were already available for many Americans. I'm not even sure if tomatoes played as big of a role then as they do today but i enjoy them in there. In my family if we had beans, they were on the side.

You can read more about its evolution here
http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Chili/ChiliHistory.htm
 
^ Very informative read, thank you! Not that I've gotten through all of it. It still sounds to me like from the beginning or early on it could either have beans in it, or the beans were eaten with the chili like you said, as a side. Just as with a lot of dishes like that (feijoada, various Latin American dishes), I would bet it was often served on the same plate and people mixed or didn't as they liked.

Man I'm getting hungry!
 
BEANS!!

I prefer this dish best over FRENCH FRIES!!!!! Not Noodles.....although noodles are good.....right after fries and tortilla chips.



CRANBERRY beans are where it's at. (They taste nothing like cranberries)
 
Things that DON'T belong in chili:

Celery
Corn
Carrots
Oregano (sorry but that's for spaghetti sauce - you're making a Texas dish here, not a Mario Batali dish).

Things I LOVE to put in my chili:
dark beer (stout/porter/barleywine)
cocoa powder
Bovril (hard to find in the US, but it was a staple in my mom's kitchen - it's beef broth concentrate)
onions
peppers - I use as MANY kinds as I have in my kitchen. Bell peppers, jalapenos, banana peppers, pepperonici (don't use too much, the pickling shines through easily), scotch bonnet, etc etc. The mix usually creates a long multi-level heat.
beef/turkey/sausage/whatever other meats I have
beans (just a bit - pintos).

MC
 
N7KMS said:
International Chili Society says no beans and I agree.
Click to expand...

Who let CAMRA start a chili society? :mad: Should call themselves CAMRC.

Seriously though, your recipe looks awesome. I'd almost be willing to forgo the beans just to see how it tasted.

BTW - Dry beans are a pain in the butt, but they cook up WAY better than canned.
 
Beans! Soak them overnight in a bath of Ghost Face Killah from Twisted Pine. Good stuff.
 
Some beans but not a lot.

I make mine with trimmings from our smoked brisket, onion, tomato, pasilla or poblano peppers, chili powder and just a little BBQ sauce. If I'm putting it on dogs I whiz it up a bit in the food processor.

It is really good.
 
I go a slightly different route... I actually mash up some of the red beans when I use the red ones... When I use black beans I do not mash. I can eat chili with or without beans, it all depends on my mood.
 
two_hearted said:
For me, chili has beans in it. Green chili does not.

For those who say beans are for vegetarians, etc. have never had some good ole' southern beans cooked all day in a cast iron skillet with a piece of smoked pig simmering in 'em.
Click to expand...

Yeah beans are good, but they still dont belong in chili
 
Kinsman said:
Some beans but not a lot.

I make mine with trimmings from our smoked brisket, onion, tomato, pasilla or poblano peppers, chili powder and just a little BBQ sauce. If I'm putting it on dogs I whiz it up a bit in the food processor.

It is really good.
Click to expand...

That sounds really good!
 
No beans and no ground meat. Cubed roast or steak! I have won every chilli cooking I have entered (10 or so) and lots people that have been die hard "bean" in chilli fans have told me they have a new perspective.
 
cheezydemon3 said:
BEANS!!

I prefer this dish best over FRENCH FRIES!!!!! Not Noodles.....although noodles are good.....right after fries and tortilla chips.



CRANBERRY beans are where it's at. (They taste nothing like cranberries)
Click to expand...

You think that is good. Try it over Tots. The best nachos I ever had was with Tots rather than chips or fries.
 
DrunkleJon said:
You think that is good. Try it over Tots. The best nachos I ever had was with Tots rather than chips or fries.
Click to expand...

Oh R2D2, I am channeling Gemelli...(where is he???)

It ain't nachos if it aint got chips, lol.

I hear you on tots.

We are not that far off. I like the big thick crinkle fries, which are crispy but with a nice potato center (as opposed to McD fries) like tots.

I do not, however call it nachos ;)
 
I prefer few to no beans in my chili. I cook the beans up on the side though for the MRS and usually put a few in mine as well, but the quickest way to ruin good chili is to put too many beans in it.
 

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