Texas Chili

Beef, Ancho Chilis, Cumin And Salt

“Chili concocted outside of Texas is usually a weak, apologetic imitation of the real thing." — President Lyndon B. Johnson

Nothing else really equals Texas chili. Nothing else even comes close. Certainly none of the fifty or so chilis I judged at two chili cookoffs in Richmond, Virginia, during the late '80s approached ambrosia. That might not be saying much: both were unsanctioned events.

I got to be the chief judge because I had been reviewing restaurants in Richmond for a year or so after Scribners published my novel beloved Gravely, and because back in the Seventies, my recipe column had appeared in as many as six daily newspapers, including the World Herald in Omaha, Nebraska. That was before the food volcano exploded like Krakatoa. I had worked as a chef, managed a restaurant, and owned my own successful restaurant. I had done a lot of catering. And my daughter's mother worked for the radio station that sponsored the chili cookoff.

Should you ever be called upon to judge a chili cookoff, be sure to bring a large pan of perfectly cooked, buttered arborio rice. Carolina short grain will do. Half polished Thai brown Jasmine rice will do.  Basmati rice, however, interferes with the chili savor.  One of the other five judges looked askance at the rice when I walked in the door. Soon I heard him sneering to of the other judges.  "Rice!  This is a chili cookoff.  Who is that guy?"

That first year, there were 25 contestants. That meant tasting at least 25 half tablespoons of blinding hot chili on the first go 'round. Generally speaking, most chefs in a cookoff do go for the blinding hot effect. Then 20 tablespoons on the second go 'round after you weed out the chaff. Then 10 tablespoons. And after that, free choice and as much as you want until finally you and your fellow judges are able to reach a strong consensus on the winner. It takes a while.

Some scoring sheets I brought along proved very helpful. It was a blind tasting, natgurally. After the first 20 half tablespoons of chili -- some  was so hot even the vapor made  your eyes water when you walked by the booth where they were cooking it -- the sneering judge sidled up  to me. "Uh ... Christian?" he said in a strangled voice. "Still got that rice?"

A friend from Texas who has lived in Charlottesville most of his adult life, gave me this recipe back in the Seventies. He said it won the Texas Chili Cookoff. I don't know what year.  Certainly it should have won. I hope you like it as much as I do, and I hope you get to make it at least once a year, as I have. I often make it for the superbowl, even though it is not the chili most people expect.

Texas Chili

3 to 5 lbs. beef chuck steak -- a nice thick piece
6-12 ancho chilis
6-12 tbsps. cumin
salt
Butter

You might start with four pounds of chuck  -- a good piece three inches thick? with a bone in it?-- or as much as will  fit in your kettle. You might toast the meat on your Weber (over charcoal, not over gas) to seal in the juicejuice. Using mesquite will add that mesquite zing. Some people like it, but I think green red oak works better. Chris Walters taught me that trick too.

If you brown the meat in the pan, do not use olive oil. A little lard, maybe -- fresh, if possible. Or a few spoons of clarified butter. Or sprinkle the bottom of the pan with salt. Sear the beef dark brown on both sides. You can leave the piece whole, then cut it up when it's tender. It stews better, and probably makes better broth, when the pieces are smaller. However, browning bitesized pieces on the Weber will give you some trouble.

While the meat browns, pop the stems out of six to ten ancho chilies (you want two or three anchos per pound of beef). Split them and remove the seeds. Brown the anchos somewhat in a skillet or on the grill.  When the meat is browned, cut it up, leaving several big pieces, and cutting the rest in odd sized chunks, none smaller than dice. Carve off any mammoth hunks of fat and hash them up small.. Put the meat in a big stew kettle -- stainless steel works best. Do not use an aluminum kettle. Sprinkle all over with cumin. Like, at least one tablespoon per pound. Two or three will be better.L et the cumin sizzle with the pan juices, but don't let it scorch. Add the anchos. Put in some salt.  Not much if you used salt whan browning the beef.  Cook a bit over medium high heat. Add spring water to reach three inches over the meat. In most parts of the country -- including probably all of Texas -- municipal tap water won't make good chili. Bring slowly to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover the pan

After half an hour, taste the broth and probably add more salt. Not too much at this point because the liquid will cook down. Do not add any other spices -- early on, I tried monkeying around with the basic Walters Family recipe, and aromatics really don't help. Especially, avoid bay leaf, thyme, oregano or rosemary. Do not add black pepper, either, nor any saffron. Saffron rice, however, is very good with Texas chili.

NEVER add any type of roux or other thickening to the broth. Beef, chilis, cumin, salt and good water.

Cover the kettle and let the chili stew slowly for maybe two and a half hours -- or until the meat is tender. It is done when all the cartilage is every piece is fork tender. About forty minutes before the end point is reached, fish out all the anchos. Separate the pulp and skins. The skins will probably peel off.  Mash the pulp (coarsely) with a fork.  Any skins left will eventually float and make straws -- fish them out.

Taste it. My friend the poet Ed Haile, in Champlain, Virginia, once ran into a problem with bitter anchos. But I never did. Might depend on the anchos. Maybe he left the stems on.  I wasn’t there when he made the chili, so I don’t know what happened. .If the anchos seem bitter, try adding sugar by the teaspoon, stirring well after each addition, until the bitter flavor abates. Discard the ancho skin straws if there are any floating around. Separating them from their pulp.Mash the pulp with a fork.  Return the coarsely mashed ancho pulp to the kettle, stir, and adjust the cumin and salt. Put the lid back on, and go on stewing for a while.

You can set the pan in the oven at 300 degrees if you like stewing that way better. This saves some trouble, but it's not so much fun.

The meat is done when it's all fork tender. By then, the \exquisite broth will have cooked down to about half an inch over the meat. Maybe an inch. Put in a stick of butter.  Stir for a while. Adjust the salt one last time. The broth should be thin (though not watery), and it should be exquisitely tasty. If it seems too thin, take out a saucepan full and reduce that by half over high heat, then add that back into the chili.

Serve with the usual condiments -- sour cream, guacamole, pinto beans, (preferably corn) tortillas, and maybe some salsa. I do like some rice. Leftover chunks make a great burrito. However, the greatness of the burrito will depend quite a lot on the beans.

The chili broth , slightly reduced with some shreds of meat and anchos i it, makes an outstanding sauce for a grilled porterhouse or a grilled Tri Tip, so be sure to save take out two cups. That chili broth is also great on poached eggs.

Chris Walters once made this with serrano chilis when he couldn't find any anchos. The experiment failed. The chili was too hot to eat, even for Chris. He and his then-wife Cecile Clover were living out at Prospect Hill running  the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Possibly augmenting the anchos with one serrano to add fire would be a good idea. Depends on who’s coming to dinner. On the other hand, why mess around with just beef, ancho chilis, cumin and salt -- which comes so exquisitely close to perfection?

Pulled Pork and Szegediner Goulash

Little Red and I started out toward Adam’s Market in Kingston hankering for lamb chops, but once there we soon discovered that the price of lamb chops has risen into the stratosphere. Fortunately, there were some very tasty looking boneless pork butts—perfect for making Pulled Pork, and I reckoned one would do very well for making both Pulled Pork and Szegediner Goulash, which is made with pork, sauerkraut and plenty of Pride of Szeged Hungarian Paprika. The pork butts were only $1.09 a pound, which seemed about 1/18 of the price of the lamb chops we wanted.

It is better to make pulled pork in a slow smoker. Even a Weber Grill (charcoal) will much better results—but Oven Roasted Pulled Pork can be excellent, and it is certainly better than no barbecue at all. If you’re hankering for a smoke flavor you can always dab on a bit of liquid smoke, or roast some hickory chips in the oven for a while.

Remove any twine netting from the pork butt. Sprinkle it all over rather heaviliy with salt and pepper. Insert three or four cloves’ worth of slivered American garlic into slits poked into the fatty parts of the pork butt. Salt and pepper the butt again and sprinkle it all over with Pride of Szeged Sweet Hungarian Paprika — which we also got at Adam’s. Place the butt in a roasting pan fat side up. If necessary prop it with some potato slices. Set the pan in an oven preheated to 450° oven until it is well-browned. If the pan starts smoking add a little water or turn the heat down. Or do both. It may well take half an hour to brown the beast.

Turn the heat down to 325° and roast for an hour. Meanwhile, prepare some Yukon Gold potatoes by removing the eyes, the stems, and any bad spots, then cut them in half. Peel two large onions. Coarsely chop one; cut the other into half rings. Take the meat out of the oven after an hour, and put it on a platter.

If you are planning to make Szegediner Goulash, cut off a third of the pork butt. A pound and a half or two pounds. It will not be cooked done yet. If you are just making pulled pork, skip all the goulash instructions.

Put the halved potatoes in the roasting pan. Strew the onion over everything, then put the pork butt back in the roasting pan fat side up and continue roasting it for half an hour while you put the goulash together:

For Szegediner Goulash, cut the pork butt into eating sized pieces. Tumble the pork pieces into a large stewpot with a goodly amount of the drippings from the pulled pork pann and brown them over medium high heat, stirring occasionally. Don't let them scorch, but a good forthright flame will be essential. Sprinkle on a bit more paprika and also some salt and papper. Add a cup of sliced mushrooms as the pork begins to brown. Add a large onion, diced, and six cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped. Let the vegetables brown. You might like to add a carrot and one stalk of celery, both minced. Sprinkle everything with two tablespoons of Pride of Szeged Hungarian Paprika—preferably one tablespoon of sweet and one tablespoon of hot. Add a bay leaf and a tablespoon of thyme. Add some freshly ground black pepper. Open a package of sauerkraut and drain it in a colander. You will not need to soak the sauerkraut unless it seems extremely sour. Let the sauerkraut join the rest of the goulash ingredients in the stew pot. Add enough water or preferably pork or ham stock (do not use canned broth) to cover by an inch. Bring to the boil, and then reduce the flame to a good simmer and cover the pan. ** The goulash will need to cook at least two hours for the meat to get properly tender. About half an hour before it is done, remove most of the excess liquid to another pan or a skillet and reduce it down until it gets thick. Meanwhile, add a cup of sour crream to the goulash, and stir it in well. Add the reduced cooking liquid, stir well, add a tablespoon of chervil, and adjust the seasonings. Let your goulash simmer a few minutes, then check the seasonings again. Finish the sauce with a tablespoon of red wine and some butter, if you like. Serve over broad egg noodles.

At the ** above, return to the pulled pork: Now cut two sheets of aluminum foil, both long enough to make a tent over the the pulled pork and the entire pan. Crease them several times along one edge to make a tight seal and then spread them out to make double wide foil. Haul the pork out of the oven. Use the double wide foil to cover the pork and make a tight seal around the pan. Put the pan back in the oven and lower the heat to 300°. You can sprinkle the top all over with Tabasco or Cholula hot sauce, if you like. It will need to cook at least two more hours to be fork-tender. Long, slow cooking is essential.

Lift one corner of the foil and use a fork to test for doneness—will it pull? If so, it’s done. When the meat is tender, remove it to a platter and use two dinner forks to pull it apart into shreds. If some chunks won’t separate easily, put them on a cutting board and hash them up. The outside crispy brown pieces are the best. Be sure to eat most of them before choipping them into the rest of the barbecue.

Barbecue sauce is not essential. I recommend you don’t use it. Down south, pulled pork is served on soft buns; probably because they don’t have decent poppy seed hard rolls. I like coleslaw on my barbecue. Some do not.

To make coleslaw: ½ a large head of cabbage, one jar of Marzetti Slaw Dressing. Shred the cabbage on a mandoline or using a chef’s knife, or grate it on the WhizzinArt. Put in a large bowl. Add the Marzetti slaw dressing. Kraft Slaw Dressing will not give good results. Mix well. Let stand an hour in the refrigerator. Serve over—or at least next to—pulled pork barbecue.

While everything finishes cooking, you'll have just enough time to make some pâte à choux for cream puffs. Bake the creampuffs while your pulling the pork. Fill them with vanilla ice cream and top with chocolate ganache made by melting Lindt milk chocolate with some heavy cream.

God bless you all, and please invite me to dinner.