Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with chili

Help me make my life a little more chili

toomuchpete — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:49:27 -0800

I've decided that it is time for me to learn how to make chili and I'm looking for some pointers and resources on advanced chili theory. More composition and less paint-by-numbers, please. It is my firm belief that, as a red-blooded American man, one of my unspoken duties is to be able to make a mean pot of chili. And, further, because I do not have a family recipe to adopt, I believe that it is also my duty to develop one to pass on to any eventual TooMuchChildrens. *

It goes without saying that this process will likely not be quick, and will involve lots and lots of trial (and maybe even some error), but that's half of the fun. Trying 100 different recipes from other people and trying to pick the one I like best seems . . . boring (but probably just as tasty).

So I'm looking for resources that help me understand what really makes chili chili. Recipes are okay, I suppose, but I'm looking for more in the way of "theory". Less 1 lb of this, 1 Tbsp of that, more about balancing flavors, interesting ideas to try, and so on. Tips, hints, dire warnings.

I'm also open to general cooking resources in this same vein that could be applied.

I am not afraid of anything in my kitchen (except, maybe, the tupperware container in the back of the fridge) and I'm generally pretty experimental there, so this sort of thing is not entirely foreign to me, but I'd like a little direction and inspiration before I start throwing things in a pot.

So, hope me hive-mind: I'm looking for anything. Books. Websites. One-off tips. TV shows. Documentaries. 1-900 chili tip lines. Whatever.

And I suppose if you really, really must, your favoritest chili recipe or recipe book.

* - I am not interested in suggestions that this is not the case.

Holy cow that's a lotta beef.

lwclec072 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:46:25 -0800

Help us think of roast recipes and chili recipes would be welcome, too. Boyfriend and I found a wholesale beef farm in our town and we got lots of meat, 20 pounds to be exact. We have 2 roasts and some stew meat. One of the roast we are going to slow cook with carrots, potatoes, celery and the works, but the other roast we're not exactly sure what we should do with it, other than just turning it into a slow cooked roast like the other, any ideas like maybe philly cheese steak would that be possible to turn a roast into shredded beef? If so help us do it! :)

We also have stew meat and my boyfriend wants to make chili with that and i'm never heard of such, any ideas with that?

What shall I feed the playful masses?

itesser — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:45:32 -0800

I need more ideas for "game night" food! I've done curry and chili in the past, and am tossing around lasagna and gumbo as possibilities in the future, but want more options. Since every cooking question is special, there is Every so often there happens to be a gathering of 5-7 people in the house I'm living in. Not every one shows up at the same time, or eats at the same time, so it's not quite a dinner where I can expect every one to sit down and focus 20 or 30 minutes on "meal time".

Curry and chili were smashing successes because I could spend an hour hanging around the kitchen, adding more ingredients, tasting and spicing. I stuck the bread in the oven (naan and corn, respectively), and when it was done whoever was hungry grabbed a bowl and served themselves.

I experiment and improvise a lot when I cook. The curry was based on several recipes and vague memories of how my husband does it. The chili was based on several recipes and what sounded good.

basic criteria:
- flexible, forgiving, scalable.
- reheats well/makes good leftovers
- doesn't rely on meat* or exotic ingredients (the spice selection is limited)
- doesn't need side dishes (bread/rice/basic pasta are fine)
- don't need food-processor/blender or electric mixer/kitchenaid

* sometimes a vegetarian shows up, sometimes not. I can use TVP in place of ground beef, and chicken when she's not around, but want to avoid recipes where each person gets their own steak/chicken breast/piece of fish

Bonus points:
- doesn't need constant attention
- includes garlic

Chili When It's Chilly

netbros — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:19:44 -0800

I'm going to make a pot of chili tomorrow. Besides the usual kidney beans, tomato schtuff, burger and trinity, what do you like to put in yours to liven things up? I'm going to the grocery before I start, so please help me out with some favorite ingredients and recipes. Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Vegan Chili

turgid dahlia — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:32:39 -0800

I want to make a vegan chili stew. Help me make it nutritious and delicious and I may let you have some. Extended culinary noodling inside. I like to make stews and chilis and pasta sauces and weird vegan soup things. I've decided that tonight, with the assistance of beer, I am going to make the greatest chili known to all humankind. Here's what I'm going to do:

1) Soak some tvp (textured vegetable protein) in vegetable stock, garlic and pepper

2) While this happens, lightly molest some red onions in olive oil

3) Add tasty soaked tvp to pot where the onions and olive oil are

4) Add crushed tomatoes, kidney beans, grated carrot, chili flakes, a variety of herbs and spices and possibly red wine

5) Permit to stew for a while, then add corn kernels, mushrooms, and spinach

6) Permit to stew for longer, then serve with rice.

Now, my questions are thus:

1) What am I doing wrong?

2) What can I do better?

3) What else can I add?

4) Is frozen corn or canned corn more nutritious?

Basically I want your tips on making the greatest vegan chili ever, packed full of good healthy stuff, good and hot but not too painful. Help me put together a shopping list, Metafilter! The concept of "chili" is, so far as I can tell, a particularly American one, so advice from that corner of the planet would be greatly appreciated.

Mmmmmbenschilibowlmmmmmm

lunasol — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:05:46 -0800

How can I make chili like they do at Ben's Chili Bowl in DC? But with beans, too? And in a crockpot? Ben's chili is the food of the gods. Sadly, I no longer live anywhere near Ben's, and so I want to try to make it myself. Although I'll probably be adding beans, to make it more meal-like (since I most likely won't be pouring it on hot dogs and french fries). And I want to make it in a crockpot.

I know the recipe is "top-secret," but I bet I'm not the first person to ever attempt it at home. I did find this recipe in Yahoo!Answers, but, well, we all know how reliable that site is.

help my chili taste better

disaster77 — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:49:00 -0800

I'm making chili for dinner tonight and it tastes kind of sour. I want to learn how to taste things so that I can add to adjust the flavour while cooking, but I don't know what to add. Help my chili taste better! So, this is what's in the chili so far:
- ground beef
- diced onion
- 2 packets of hot chili seasoning
- enough tomato sauce and/or paste to get the right consistency
- cans of beans: dark kidney, light kidney, chili and black
- can of chopped chipotle peppers in sauce
- 2 cans of diced green chilis

I've made chili a bunch of times. Sometimes it's awesome and sometimes it's not. I don't know what the difference is exactly as I don't always have exactly the same ingredients. I just took a small bowl for lunch to try it and it seems kind of sour. So I think maybe I should add sugar, but don't know if that would be correct. Is it? I want to be able to correct recipes on the fly like this. I appreciate any guidance.

Tien Tsin vs de Arbol

SpecialK — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:36:31 -0800

Tien Tsin vs. Arbol - Can I use Chili de Arbol in place of the traditional Tien Tsin peppers that I know chinese food recipes call for? Chili de Arbol was the only thing I could find in my (rural, Texas) area easily.

The Goggles Do Nothing

Fiasco da Gama — Sun, 25 May 2008 18:48:49 -0800

Save me from the pain of chilli-in-the-eye. Last night when I was cooking I was foolish and rubbed my eye, after chopping chillies, but before scrubbing my hands.
The pain went away only after a good half an hour's rinsing my face with cold water. Is there a better, or recommended, way to make the pain stop?
I am generally fairly good with chilli-discipline, and am not interested in hearing about the preventative measures I already use: I know that sooner or later I'll inevitably defeat any possible security measure and poke myself in the face again. I'd like to be prepared to face that eventuality.

Central America chili-off

harhailla.harhaluuossa — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:31:36 -0800

So Taksi Putra has challenged me to a 'chili-off' in Central America (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize) this summer. What should we eat and where? Higher on the Scoville the better. Anything east of Baja is fair game. If it sounds tasty and is super-hot, we'll hunt it down. Specific restaurants / neighborhoods to go to?
Recipes welcome too.
Also: what drinks do we pair the food with? Alcohol suggestions?

We're not looking only for Central American food; simply the hottest.

Note: We're pretty resilient to capsacin and super-mobile - suggest away!

Hot rabbit recipe

tellurian — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 01:15:00 -0800

A chilli rabbit recipe from a 'Hemphills Herbs and Spices' book. I once had a recipe book that was essentially a promotional tool for 'Hemphills Herbs and Spices' (an Australian herb and spice purveyor, natch). A4 size, paperback, and (from memory) had a picture of Ian and his mother, Rosemary, standing in front of hedge with an armful of herbs - it was a very green picture. It had a recipe for cooking rabbit with the main ingredients being chilli*, garlic and tomato. The recipe I'm seeking DOES NOT CONTAIN BEANS. Does anyone have this book and is willing to share the recipe? Or, if not this exact recipe, one that DOES NOT CONTAIN BEANS but has chilli, garlic and tomato as the main ingredients.
*I fear my search has been severely hampered by the variants in the spelling of chilli, chili and chile.

Tips on cooking or brewing with hot peppers.

nebulawindphone — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:26:45 -0800

Tell me about cooking (or better yet, brewing) with hot peppers. I'm looking to make a batch of ancho chili mead. I'd like it to have as much of the fruity ancho flavor as possible, and as little heat or bitterness — I know that some heat is inevitable, but I want this stuff to be drinkable for ordinary humans and not just rabid chili-heads, so I'm aiming for a nice warm tingle and not a vicious burn.

Cooks: How do you maximize the flavor, and minimize the heat, when cooking with hot peppers? Methods involving fat (steeping in oil, frying) aren't really an option here. Anything involving water, sugar, honey or alcohol is ideal.

Homebrewers: Have you ever brewed with hot peppers? Did you add them to the boil, in primary, in secondary, to the bottle, or what? How'd it turn out? What did you learn?

But there are many, many Moles, including Green Mole with Tomatillos, Green Mole with Pumpkinseeds, Orange-Red Mole, Red Mole, Yellow Mole and the famous peasant Soup, Mole de Olla.

mek — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 02:14:27 -0800

How do I make a great mole (poblano)? I've found this website, and I have a great deal of general cooking experience, but I'm not particularly adept at mexican food. I am reasonably confident I can execute a recipe, but I live in the frigid north of Canada (Vancouver), so real mole is impossible to find, thus I am determined to make my own. Ingredient sourcing is not a problem, nor is time or effort required.

What I really want to know are specific tips and tricks, general recommendations for ingredients, serving recommendations, etc. What is best done ahead of time, what is best left to the last minute? Where can I substitute and what is completely non-negotiable? If you have experience making mole, please share your l33t infoz.

Help! I lost my spice!

unSane — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:48:36 -0800

Identify this cookbook, or give me the potato/chili soup recipe I yearn for. Years ago (mid 80s), I bought a cookbook, probably in England, but possibly North America. It was a small, Penguin*-sized paperback and was full of recipes for spicy food. I think they had chili ratings for how hot they were (but maybe not). It might have been called "The Chili Cookbook" (yes, I've googled, but nothing rings a bell) but it might not.

Thing is, it had the recipe for a potato and poblano chili soup which I made once and, in retrospect, was the most divine thing I ever tasted. I remember it contained enormous quantities of garlic, plus chilis, potatoes and cream. I don't know what else.

In one of my transatlantic movies, it disappeared.

Can anyone identify this cookbook, or point me at the recipe??

*the book not the flightless bird

Chili peppers in European cuisine?

pravit — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 08:53:48 -0800

If Europeans were responsible for bringing chili peppers to countries renowned for their spicy cuisine(Korea, Thailand, etc.), why didn't the use of chili peppers become popular in European cuisine? When I think about Korean or Thai cuisine I can't imagine how they must have tasted like without chili peppers. But from what I've read, chili peppers were only introduced to these countries sometime in the 16th century. If Europeans have had access to chili peppers for that long, and took a liking to other things that originally came from far-off places(e.g. tea, silk, tomatoes, potatoes), why hasn't the use of chili peppers becomes as widespread in European cuisine as it has in some Asian cuisines?

The Weird and Wonderful World of Chili

divabat — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 22:05:39 -0800

What sort of weird and wonderful stuff have people made with chili? I'm helping a friend who's writing a book about anything to do with chili peppers. Right now we're trying to look for:

a) Medicinal remedies that involve chili (whether old-wives-taleish or more medically sound)
b) Tech innovations with chili
c) Other weird and wonderful uses of chili

So far we have found the use of chili as barnacle prevention, and chili facewash (apparently it's a good anti-acne agent) but nothing much else. She's trying to avoid too many cookbook-style recipes and wants more unusual uses.

My search-Fu is not that strong now.

Thank you so much!

I hate to ruin a good chili with excess cheese just because I'm too weak for it!

e^2 — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 12:06:38 -0800

Is there an easy yardstick for judging spiciness pre-cooking? Especially re: chili recipes I'm working on developing my own chili but every time I try I wind up with a dish that's too hot for me. I'm a beginning cook and there a lot of ingredients that I just don't have a good feel for yet. I know the best way to get that is to keep experimenting and trying different variations, but there's so many recipes out there!

I am somewhat of a wimp about these things (I like chorizo sausage but andouille kicks my ass; generic "hot" Italian sausage from the grocery store is okay for spaghetti but only with a tall glass of milk; I can only eat Thai if they're kind enough to make it "mild" or maybe "mild-plus" for me, etc.) I have had a look at some of the other chili threads and am intrigued by the Cincinnati chili and this Texas-style chili with beer, but, again, how hot on a scale of spicy are these likely to be?

It's hot in here

russmail — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 16:32:21 -0800

On the back of Asparagirl's jalapeño query, why do chilies make you sweat?

Chili

kenko — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 08:38:16 -0800

Chili! I want your recipes. And I pray that this be an ecumenical zone, where adherents of all chili-related dogmas will be welcome.

Heat Up My Chili

SpecialK — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:34:16 -0800

ChiliFilter: When I make chili, I use cayenne pepper and red pepper powders and sauces, respectively. But the 'bite' of the heat comes a second or two after the chili hits my mouth and is rather metallic, versus right away and nice and warm and full like chili you get at a restaurant. What's the difference? What ingredients can I add to bring the heat forward earlier, and make it warmer and less "bite"-y?

Canned Chili for Texans

Nelson — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 13:24:28 -0800

Is there such a thing as good canned chili? Note: I grew up in Texas.