Original Texas Style Chili Frank Tolbert
List of Ingredients
True Texas-style chili includes only meat, chile peppers, and spices.
However, that is just a jumping off place for the rest of us
who routinely add onions and tomatoes and other original and/or
unusual spices and ingredients.
Popular chile toppings include a dollop of sour cream
(to help tame the hotter versions), chopped onions, grated
Cheddar or Jack cheese, crackers and tortilla chips.
ORIGINAL TEXAS-STYLE CHILI
from A Bowl of Red by Frank Tolbert
3 lbs. lean beef, preferably stewing meat
2 oz. beef suet (or substitute vegetable oil)
3-6 Ancho chile pods, boiled 5 minutes, cooled, stemmed,
seeded and chopped, cooking water reserved.
(or 3-6 Tbsp. chili powder or ground chile)
1 tsp. oregano
1 Tbsp. crushed cumin seed
1 Tbsp. salt
1 Tbsp. cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp. Tabasco sauce
2-4 minced garlic cloves, to taste
2-4 extra Ancho chile pods
2 Tbsp. Masa Harina or cornmeal
Cook suet until fat is rendered. Remove suet.
Sear meat in fat in 2 or 3 batches. (Use oil for low cholesterol, less grease.)
Place meat in large pot with pepper pods and as much of the
pepper liquid as you think you'll need to keep the meat from burning.
About two inches of water rising above the meat is usually right.
Bring to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes.
Add rest of ingredients except Masa and extra Anchos.
Simmer 45 minutes more, covered.
Stir only occasionally. Skim off grease. Taste and adjust seasonings.
If not hot enough to suit you, add extra Ancho pods which have been
stemmed and seeded, but not chopped. Add Masa Harina to thicken
liquid.
Simmer for another 30 minutes until the meat is tender.
Variation: Wick Fowler made his prize-winning chili basically the
same way, but he did not use suet and added 15 oz. of tomato sauce.
He never served the chili on day of its conception, but kept it in the
refrigerator overnight and skimmed off the grease the next day,
then added Masa Harina upon heating the chili if it was too thin. Recipe
And remember-Taste while you are cooking-or it's no fun!!
There are as many recipes for chili as there are cooks,
and I have used several.
The key to good chili is to use beef suet to brown the meat
and to be patient!! Chili takes time to cook and come out tender.
But it is a dish to have fun with and, if you taste as you cook, whatever
variation will please the palate.
The following was stolen off the web a long time ago and I present it with my
apologies, because I have forgotten whose page I stole it from.
The exact origin of chili is still shrouded in mystery.
Some people believe it was originated by chuckwagon
cooks who regularly prepared stew for the cowpokes
of the Southwest.
Possibly, one of the these cooks ran
out of black pepper and in his search for a substitute,
he came across some red chile peppers which were
common among the Indians and Mexicans in the territory
that is now west Texas.
These undomesticated capsicums were extremely hot.
When the cowboys inquired about the
source of the extreme heat, they were told that the heat
came from the "chile", or hot pepper. Over time, this
sizzling stew became popular in its own right, and became
known as "chili". Chili became so popular in Texas and
later elsewhere that chili parlors and chili cook-offs sprang
up everywhere.
Beginning in 1967 as a joke with a chili-cooking duel
between humorist H. Allen Smith and journalist Wick Fowler,
chili cook-offs are now popular all over the country, with
state-wide and International contests.
The Chili Appreciation Society International (CASI) cook-off
is held in Terlingua, TX and the ICS (International Chili Society)
Cook-off was held in CA, but I think it was held in NV this year.
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