This chili gets its rich red color from a puree of ancho and pasilla chiles.
It’s snowing outside, fat flakes falling thickly, rimming the edge of a weathered urn, making a slatted white cushion for a green café chair carelessly left outside.
Inside, a log is burning brightly in the fireplace and on TV, Marcello Mastroianni is raising a cynical eyebrow in Fellini’s 8-1/2. It’s the most luxurious kind of day, an unexpected midweek holiday. For me, it’s a day to make chili.
In Texas I sometimes made this recipe with venison. But if venison isn’t in the larder, you can certainly use chopped beef. And please do chop it—chili with ground beef just isn’t the real thing. This recipe is made with blade chuck roast, cut into bite size pieces. It’s flavorful but tough and has to simmer for 3 to 4 hours until it becomes tender. Perfect for a slow snow day.
This chili will likely not taste like any you have ever had. Contrary to most chili which is spiced with commercial chili powder, this one is made with whole dried chile pods, soaked and pureed, then simmered with the beef. The first chili powder, incidentally, was invented in Texas in 1896 by one Willie Gebhardt—Gebhardt’s is still a big name in the chili world—and if you check recipes from the annual Terlingua Interntional Chili Cookoff, you will find that every trophy winner for the last 18 years has used arcane blends of chili powders—light, dark, habanero, jalapeno, Gebhardt’s, Pendery’s, and Mexene, But before chile powder, the dish was made with whole dried chiles.
If you love chiles, a good ratio is four pods per pound of meat, fewer if you’re less enthusiastic. Normally I use ancho chiles with a chipotle thrown in for extra heat. But today I’m running short of anchos, so I’m adding half dozen pasilla peppers. The ancho, actually a dried poblano, is a meaty, fat, triangular chile, with wrinkly almost black skin and a dark rich flavor. It ranks near the bottom of the Scoville scale at 1,000 to 2,000 units. The pasilla, also on the mild side of hot, is a long and narrow dried pepper that tapers to a point; the ones I’m using have a chocolatey, slightly fruity taste. Together they make a luscious base for the chili, warm enough to create a glow, but not so hot that you’ll break a sweat. Of course, all bets are off if you include the small but fiery chipotle (5,000 to 10,000 Scoville units).
There’s a lot of debate about the other ingredients: Can you use tomatoes? How about onions? And does real chili have pinto beans? Many Texans are adamant about not using tomatoes or even onions—though here again, most Terlingua winners don’t blanch at a can of Hunts. But I think tomatoes and onions give the chili a rounder, more complex flavor, so in they go. Personally I would never add pinto beans or frijoles; they are just too bland and starchy for this spicy stew.
Decades ago, the San Antonio chili queens stirred their pots over smoky wood fires in front of the Alamo. To get some of that outdoor flavor into the chili, I sometimes sear the meat over mesquite coals before putting it in the pot. Not now, though, as the snow has turned to sleet and the day is “dreek” as a Scottish friend likes to say. Instead I’m adding a little smoked black salt from Mexico—but you could use any of the smoked salts that are so popular now. Of course salt smoked over oak Chardonnay barrels might be a bit over the top for a dish that once was a poor man’s feast—but the taste is what counts.
Like all slow-simmered dishes, the chili tastes better the next day or even a few days later. As it sits, the flavors mingle and intensify. The problem is waiting that long...
Texas Style Beef Chili with Dried Chiles and Smoked Salt
Serves 6
Ingredients:
3 to 4 pounds blade chuck roast
1 tablespoon canola oil (more if necessary)
6 dried ancho peppers (see note)
6 dried pasilla peppers (see note)
1 dried chipotle pepper (optional) (see note)
2 cups chopped onion
1/2 head garlic, cloves peeled and chopped
3 to 4 Roma tomatoes, peeled, and chopped
4 teaspoons ground cumin, or to taste
2 teaspoons oregano, or to taste
Smoked salt, to taste
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
Method:
1. Ask your butcher to chop the chuck roast into 1-inch pieces. Chuck has quite a bit of fat; you can cut away a little of it, but don’t even think of removing all or even half of it. The fat gives the chili a richer, more luscious flavor.
2. Remove the stems and seeds from the dried peppers and place them in separate bowls. Pour boiling water over each to cover and let them soak until they become suave, or soft and pliable. Drain the peppers, but keep them separate and save the soaking water for the ancho and pasilla peppers.
3. In two separate batches, puree first the ancho and then the pasilla peppers until they are very smooth, adding 1/2 cup or more of the soaking water to each batch. There will likely be small bits of tough skin remaining. You can leave the skin in the puree, but I prefer to pass it through a food mill so that the chiles are very smooth. If you are using the chipotle, chop it very finely and set aside.
4. In a large pot over medium heat, add the canola oil and lightly brown the meat on all sides. Do this in two or three batches, as necessary. Remove to a bowl and set aside.
5. In the same pot, add a little more canola oil and sauté the onions and garlic until they are soft. Return the meat to the pot, add the ancho and pasilla chile purees, the tomato, cumin, oregano and 6 or 7 cups of water. Simmer very gently over low heat for three to four hours, uncovered, until the meat is very tender. Add more water if necessary. The chili should be fairly thick, but still liquid. About one hour before it is ready, taste and correct the seasonings, adding the chipotle pepper if you want extra heat, and more cumin and oregano if desired. This is the time to add the smoked salt, but take it easy. Some, like the black Mexican smoked salt, are very intense and can taste acrid if you use too much. Start with 1/2 teaspoon, stir to dissolve, and taste, slowly increasing the quantity if you want a smokier flavor.
6. The chili will keep in the refrigerator for 4 or 5 days. It tastes best if you can wait at least a day for the flavors to mingle. When you're ready to eat, reheat the chili and sprinkle with chopped cilantro. Serve with corn tortillas (or torn pieces of toasted baguette) and a crisp green salad.
Note: Packages of dried ancho, pasilla and chipotle pepper can be found at Latin American markets or in the international section of some supermarkets. They are also available from penzeys.com.