Should chili be made with beans? Let's settle this once and for all!

[deehere]

Beans have such a deliciously sensual texture, like the soft give of skin of a lover. Beans, beans, beans.

The magical fruit

 

[deehere]

I've actually won a local chili cook off with my chili.

At any rate, I use red kidney beans, not too many though. I've also gotten into using carne asada meat. If I can't find that, I'll ask my supermarket butcher to grind a couple of pounds of Chuck roast through the big holes of the meat grinder. Tons of spices and other shit. It's certainly not a purists chili... But it's fucking good. I also put fritos on and cheese on the bottom of the bowl, pour the chili on top and throw a few spoons of sour cream and a few scallions on top. That's my Midwestern heritage. Overload the shit till it's shopping out of the bowl.

Fuck your beanless chili. Leave that to Hormel.

I saw the coolest idea on America's Test Kitchen. They added blended up corn chips to their Five Alarm Chili along the lines of what you do. Sounded great.

 

[Typo Fu Master]

KingOrfeo's Royal Chili:
... Yuuuge list of ingredients ...

How many armies does all that feed?

I have never tried making chili but this thread is giving me the urge to try.

 

[juttjaw]

I saw the coolest idea on America's Test Kitchen. They added blended up corn chips to their Five Alarm Chili along the lines of what you do. Sounded great.

I think they used it as a thickener. I just pour mine in the bottom of the bowl and put cheese on it and spoon over the hot chili. Makes kinda a cheesy gooey mass at the bottom. It's great, but the bowl is a bitch to clean afterwards.

 

[KingOrfeo]

The magical fruit

No, the musical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot. The more you toot, the better you feel, so eat beans at every meal!

 

[pointless]

bitch, i already covered that. there's several variants and they're all valid. fart jokes are for the people.

 

[KingOrfeo]

How does a Texan know when he's hungry?

His asshole stops burning!

 

[KingOrfeo]

How many armies does all that feed?

I have never tried making chili but this thread is giving me the urge to try.

The kitchen-sink approach is an established and venerable tradition among chili cooks, pace the Texas Red purists.

 

[barefootgirl69]

I never thicken my stew (or chili) with flour. That's what the onions are for, just need to use plenty of it.

I never do it... but that's what it's for. I end up making stew in a slow cooker. And use onions in both.

*hands you some chili cheese fritos*

#fritolayknowswhatsupyo

Nom nom

Breakfast!

 

[doowdniw]

Around here, getting a bag of original fritos to put in the bottom of the bowl is SOP. The meat is either "chili ground" beef or venison - preferably back strap. Beans are usually limited to a single can of kidney beans. The only veggies are diced onions, sweated, and tomato sauce. Topped with grated cheddar and maybe a dollop of sour cream.

Alternatively, there is chili con queso, which has neither meat nor beans, but that I occasionally put over cheese enchiladas, because cheese.

 

[Mello_SixtyNine]

As a fan of chili dogs, my position is no beans.

 

[deehere]

Lamb chili (you can't get mutton here) is not unknown in the States, but I never heard of making it with okra.

No, the musical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot. The more you toot, the better you feel, so eat beans at every meal!

Thanks, I stand corrected

 

[LIVINRFANTASIES]

Denny

That's it! Tonight we have chili with beans for supper.
Yes, supper not dinner. We had that around lunch time.
Let's not forget the oyster crackers.

 

[Mello_SixtyNine]

That's it! Tonight we have chili with beans for supper.
Yes, supper not dinner. We had that around lunch time.
Let's not forget the oyster crackers.

How do you have supper at lunchtime? If you eat a meal at noon, you're having lunch.

 

[KingOrfeo]

How do you have supper at lunchtime? If you eat a meal at noon, you're having lunch.

So what time's dinner?

 

[LIVINRFANTASIES]

Denny

How do you have supper at lunchtime? If you eat a meal at noon, you're having lunch.

I have breakfast when I get up which varies since retirement.
When I went to school and work I took a lunch bucket and had lunch.
When having company or eating out around noonish we have dinner.
But dinner can also be a quick lunch. But we never "do lunch" or "brunch."
Sometime after 6PM we sit down for supper............. At my age it could be the last supper!

There's an old picture someplace showing a bunch of guys eating the Last Supper, not dinner.

 

[LIVINRFANTASIES]

Denny

So what time's dinner?

When we ate our nooner meal in Florida it was an hour sooner than we eat now in Illinois.

 

[KingOrfeo]

From "British Cookery" (1946), by George Orwell:

The richer classes have their midday meal at one-thirty in the afternoon and call it “luncheon”. At about half-past four in the afternoon they have a cup of tea and perhaps a piece of bread-and-butter or a slice of cake, which they call “afternoon tea” and they have their evening meal at half-past seven or eight, and call it “dinner”. The others, perhaps ninety percent of the population, have their midday meal somewhat earlier – usually about half-past twelve – and call it “dinner”. They have their main evening meal at about half-past six and call it “tea” and before going to bed they have a light snack – for instance cocoa and bread-and-jam – which they call “supper”. The distinction is regional as well as social. In the North of England, Scotland and Ireland many well-to-do people prefer to follow the working-class time scheme, partly because it fits in better with the working day, and partly, perhaps, from motives of conservation: for our ancestors of a century ago also had their meals at approximately these hours.

<snip>

When one has described the midday meal one has also described, in its broadest outlines, the evening meal of the minority who call that meal “dinner”. Of course luncheon and dinner are not quite the same. Dinner is a more elaborate meal, and would always consist of at least three courses, since it would start with either soup or hors d’oeuvre. But there is no luncheon dish that is definitely not a dinner dish, or vice versa, and the enormously long dinner menus which were fashionable in the nineteenth century have been obsolete for two decades or thereabouts. Even before the war, a fairly elaborate dinner would normally consist of four or at most five courses. Very few meals included more than one meat course, and the practice of eating a “savoury”, usually a preparation of cheese or salt fish, after the sweet, was rapidly going out. On the other hand it is usual to drink more alcohol with the evening meal. Few British people drink much in the middle of the day – for those who drink at all, half a pint of beer would probably be the average – and still fewer drink wine, even if they can afford it. Port wine, traditionally associated with Britain and still imported in considerable quantities, is almost purely an after-dinner drink. Gin is drunk before meals, whisky afterwards. After dinner it is usual to drink one or two small cups of coffee: coffee is drunk after lunch as well, but probably a great majority of British people prefer to end that meal with a cup of tea.

As has been pointed out already, the bulk of the British people call their main evening meal “tea”, not “dinner”, and have it at about half-past six – at any rate, they have it as soon as the bread-winner of the family returns from work. So far as food values go, “tea” is not necessarily very different from “dinner”, but the lay-out of the meal is different. “Tea”, also commonly called “high tea”, is a large, comfortable, informal meal, designed for people who are tired from work and have nothing to eat for six or seven hours. It has to consist, therefore, of something that can be got ready quickly, and it is usual to place all the dishes on the table at once.

 

[Emerson40]

Some recipes call for dredging the meat in flour before browning it, but I've never seen the point.

Often, when a recipe calls for dredging in flour, it serves to help thicken the dish.

I don't but the point is the browning. The starch in the flour sets off the process of carmelization. Starch just hasn't had those carbohydrate chains broken into sugar.Heat does that.

I learned a slightly diferent technique (for browning meat, not making chili) when I spent a week stranded with some cambodians in Tacoma. A pinch of sugar starts that same process.

What I usually do is I'm caramelizing onions simultaneously and that also accomplishes the same things because onions have sugar in them.

You are looking for the Maillard reaction when cooking (browning) meat, which when done is for flavour, and depth of flavour. This is achieved when the amino acids and some food sugars change molecularly in the food, when cooked. Using the simple sugars already in the food for the reaction will generate more of that sought after umami flavour, which adds complexity and the desired flavour layers to the finished dish. Music in your mouth, instead of a few notes.

Sometimes the browning that occurs when sugar is added is just the sugar browning / burning, and not the Maillard reaction. That could result in more char, or burning, which can be bitter tasting. The simple sugars in the food are slower to burn because they are surrounded by water, which tempers the heat.

Try a pinch or two of baking soda in the meat before cooking, which will monkey with the PH of the food, and can assist with the Maillard reaction better than added sugar.

 

[raindancer]

Browning is important also to bring forth the yummy bits stuck to the bottom of the cast iron. I always make chili in cast iron.

 

[CiaraSwallows]

depends

regular chili go for the beans, coney dog chili no way

 

[Conager]

Often, when a recipe calls for dredging in flour, it serves to help thicken the dish.




You are looking for the Maillard reaction when cooking (browning) meat, which when done is for flavour, and depth of flavour. This is achieved when the amino acids and some food sugars change molecularly in the food, when cooked. Using the simple sugars already in the food for the reaction will generate more of that sought after umami flavour, which adds complexity and the desired flavour layers to the finished dish. Music in your mouth, instead of a few notes.

Sometimes the browning that occurs when sugar is added is just the sugar browning / burning, and not the Maillard reaction. That could result in more char, or burning, which can be bitter tasting. The simple sugars in the food are slower to burn because they are surrounded by water, which tempers the heat.

Try a pinch or two of baking soda in the meat before cooking, which will monkey with the PH of the food, and can assist with the Maillard reaction better than added sugar.

Absolutely fascinating.

When I learned these techniques, Umami was not in my vocabulary. I would have simply described it as "meatier." Until I was shown the sugar technique, I would have thought it was how the meat's juices came to the surface to be seared. Sounds like that is actually part of it.

Definately going to try some baking soda.

What about brining? I'm thinking both sugar, and I am wool-gathering to remember what happens to salt in suspension.

Hey. While on that subject, I bought some "salt-free" Cavendish (I think) greek seasoning. I didn't do it for health reasons I simply did it because I thought I would get more seasoning and I could always add salt when I felt like it. It has potassum cloride in it. How is that not salt?

So the thing I was wondering was is NaCl and KCl equal exchanges in "saltiness?" By approximate weight? Volume?

Other thsn limiting sodium inrake (not a concern for me) anything make it desireable? Anything problematic?

 

[barefootgirl69]

How do you have supper at lunchtime? If you eat a meal at noon, you're having lunch.

Dinner is simply the largest meal of the day, no matter if it's lunch time or supper time.

 

[barefootgirl69]

Exactly. You instead should use thin, crisp restaurant-style, fried, corn, tortilla chips, ladle my chile verde over it, top with cheese and bake. I microwave it. Instant chiliquiles. Somewhere between enchiladas and nschos. Great breakfast.

Chilaquiles are awesome! I think you should let me know when you are going to make them again so I know when you are serving breakfast!!!

 

[KingOrfeo]

What about brining?

I doubt there's any point in brining the meat for chili.