Before I get into today’s post, just a reminder that tomorrow is the big day. Yes, it is the 2nd Annual Liberty Park Chili Society Chili Cook-off. You can see some of this year’s hardware above, one of the three categories, the other two being Best Unique and the ever-popular and organ numbing Spiciest category. Doors open at 4PM and I expect we will start judging around 5-6PM. Be sure to bring a crock pot or something similar to keep your food warm.
Back to the post at hand. Similar to last year, in addition to my “serious” chili, I made a chili just for fun, which may or may not be well received.
This recipe comes from the October issue of Bon Appetit – it is the Texas Beef Brisket Chili. It looks fantastic on the cover, and it includes butternut squash so it’s a very seasonal dish that goes perfect with fall football and colorful falling leaves (awww). In addition, I set a goal for myself that I would cook something new (to me), interesting, or otherwise challenging from each month’s issue of Bon Appetit and write about it on this site. So it begins.
I started by soaking 7 ancho chilis in boiling water. Fancy pants? Nope, I got the chiles from Publix. I ended up soaking them for roughly 45 minutes before I used them in spice mixture (more on that later).
Then I chopped two onions. I thought this would be a good time to mention the technique I use to chop onions, which I learned on the internet and I’m sure is common and nothing special. Really I just wanted to show off my Photoshop skillz.
Start by cutting the onion in half as pictured, so the top is the root, which will hold your onion together as you slice it.
Step 1 – starting on either side of the onion, make a cut from top to bottom in a similar fashion as labeled, ensuring that you don’t cut all the way to the top of the onion so the root will still hold it together. Repeat across the length of the onion.
Step 2 – cut into the length of the onion (into the side), starting near the top, cutting in as far as you can until you are as close to the root side as possible. Repeat a bit lower – if it is a large onion, you may have to repeat this a third time.
Step 3 – chop across the top of the length of the onion, moving towards the root side, resulting in a perfectly chopped onion
Half a package of chopped bacon for the base of the chili.
Started with the bacon, then added the onion.
While that was cooking I got the spices ready for the ancho chile/spice mixture. Everything is labeled. I stole this type of spice layout (and subsequent labeling) for photo purposes from the site The Food in My Beard.
Mixing the garlic with the spice mixture, the ancho chiles (seeded and stemmed), along with a cup of the water used to rehydrate the anchos. It smelled great – this sauce could be used for a lot of good stuff.
The flat cut brisket. I had to get two because Publix didn’t have one large enough for this recipe. You may recognize brisket from Texas barbeque or from my favorite, a corned beef sandwich.
There was a lot of fat on the bottom so I trimmed them heavily.
Cubed. I thought they were a little large, but I cut them to specification, and having seen the final product, it is not a problem that they are so large.
I pretty much stopped taking photos at this point. I browned the meat for a minute or two, added the ancho chile mixture, then added everything seen above, along with a can of Tecate beer. Once it was all mixed up, I brought it to a simmer on the stove top then covered it and put it in the oven for 2 hours.
After 2 hours I uncovered it and cooked it for another hour. Then I peeled, seeded, and cubed the butternut squash, added that, and baked it for another 45 minutes. The best I can do for now is show you a picture of what it looked like in the tupperware this morning. It’s not nearly as good looking as last night, but you get the idea. I will get a photo of it all warmed up in a serving bowl tomorrow!
I tasted it last night, and I think it’s quite good. It is somewhat soupy, but has loads of interesting flavor and above average heat. The meat was falling apart like pot roast and the butternut squash was a great addition – it tasted like a spicy sweet potato. We will see how the flavor develops and if the squash gets too mushy. See ya’ll tomorrow!
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