I have just too many chili recipes on my computer. Struck by an epiphany, that all the recipes involve broth/wet ingredients and spices customizing the “chili powder”, I’d experiment following the basic recipe of Carroll Shelby and Wick Fowler. These two recipes are identical except for their spices. Both include:
* two pounds of ground beef
* eight ounces of tomato sauce
* sixteen ounces of water.
I started with the same, substituting one pound of beef with a can of beans. Meat is expensive these days. Call beans a filler, it cheaper. Here’s my recipe.
Lyndell’s Experimental Coffee Chili
INGREDIENTS:
1 lb ground turkey
1 cup (8 oz) hot water
1 1/2 tsp instant coffee1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
1 tbsp cayenne
2 tbsp quick chili powder (Fiesta Spices)1 15.5 oz can kidney beans
1 8 oz can tomato sauceDIRECTIONS:
1. Brown the meat. Drain the fat.2. Heat the water and stir in the instant coffee.
3. Measure and dump the spices into the coffee.
4. Pour the coffee and into the pot. Boil a while.5. Drain and rinse the beans.
6. Add the beans and tomato sauce.
7. Boil again.
8. Lower head and simmer a while, uncovered.
For shying away from complex chili recipes, this is looking long and complicated. The common ingredients among chili recipes makes me appreciate Marissa Mayer entering cupcake recipes into a spreadsheet to determine the best mix of ingredients. I split the ingredient list into three sections. It follow the three major steps, but this ain’t a three-dump chili recipe. Really!
I use instant coffee because it’s instant, except for heating water for two minutes, and easy. You can use your regular coffee instead. Make is strong. I measure and dump the spices into the coffee, thinking premixing the spices in liquid will improve mixing in the pot. I didn’t time the boil. Seeing this mixture boil, I decided to let boil a while instead of adding the beans and tomato sauce just yet. It’s a proper Texas chili, except for the coffee. The first chili recipe I used (Kroger Hot Chili) calls for undrained beans. Many recipes call for broth or undrained beans. I drain and rinse the beans to remove the goop. I avoid the broths, too. As I realized before, chili has some form of wet ingredient such as beer, coffee, broth, tomato sauce, even water. I make a healthy and kosher chili. Lard and pork produces and recipes are not considered. [LBJ's Pedernales River Chili](http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Pedernales_River_Chili) omits the traditional beef suet on doctor’s orders. Tomatoes and onions are substituted.
Didn’t time the boiling and simmering, either. The extra boiling and simmering lets more water evaporate. I’ve added no thickeners like flour. Doesn’t seem right. Adding the flour in a Shelby/Fowler recipe made for very thick stuff.
I’m loosing interest in making spice mixes, or measuring so many spices. The various chili recipes differ mostly on spice. The term “chili powder” confuses. Is it powered chili peppers, or a blend of spices for making chili? Technically it’s the ground pepper. I haven’t found the classic chile peppers ground in the grocery stores I shop, so I tend to use a chili spice blend when the recipe calls for “chili powder”. I have a few spices left over from prior chili recipes, so I decided to measure and use some. It fills out the Fiesta Spices Quick Chili Power I like. It is convenient and has no anti-caking agent and comes is a bottle instead of a little pouch.
This chili turned out a spicy. I think I could taste the coffee this time. The cayenne makes for mild heat. Forgot I had habaneros.
