Here’s the quasi-recipe for the chili I improvised today from things that looked good at the store:
Halved this big ol’ sweet yellow onion, minced one half and sliced the other. Cooked the onion down in a little olive oil with salt and pepper. Poured two cans of Beef stock into the slow-cooker and set it on high.
While softening the onions, I started trimming fat and connective tissue from a couple of pork steaks. The noble pig is the first animal whose muscles are in my chili. After trimming the pork steaks, I cubed them and rolled them around on a plate of flour seasoned with some black pepper, white pepper, salt, and some hot mexican chili powder.
Here are the other meats that are going into the chili, along with the aforementioned plate of seasoned flour. On the left is a london broil, about 1.5 pounds of lean cow round. In the middle is a pound of ground lamb. At the top left is the flour I use: Mochiko Sweet Rice Flour. Since I don’t bake, I only use flour to coat meat for browning or frying. Here’s a handy tip: I also put a fork in for every three eggs when making scrambled eggs. Makes them fluffy and outstanding.
Here I am finishing up the trimming work on the pork steaks while some olive oil heats up in the skillet.
GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN!
While the cubed pork steaks, coated in seasoned flour, brown in the oil, I start cubing up the beef. Here I hint at my technique for cutting down the meat. I cut it into thirds, then butterflied each piece as shown. Fold it back over, slice it crossways, then finish off the cubes. These guys rolled around in the flour as well, then jumped into the skillet with some hot olive oil for a sear once the pork cubes vacated the real estate.
Those pork cubes looked like this once I was done browning them. The pork and beef go into the slow cooker. The ground lamb goes straight into the dry, hot skillet to be browned and crumbled. I had to drain it twice during cooking. If you’re not a fan of the way sheep taste, you may try using uncased sausage or ground veal (thus reducing the number of critters in the chili by one) or ground turkey (which won’t be as tender).
After all the cooked meat was in, I threw in around a cup and a half of dry barley. In go the canned tomatoes. I used halved, stewed tomatoes; tomato paste (saving some to spread on crackers as a snack with some parmesan cheese); and two smaller cans of diced tomatoes with jalapenos and habaneros. I didn’t drain any of the cans; the barley would need the moisture to rehydrate and the liquid in the cans is basically tomato stock.
Also added a large can of black beans. This one I drained.
Real tasty chili. Fake smile. Just stirring it around.
Blistering the skin on a jalapeño. After it blackened, I sliced it up and de-ribbed and de-seeded it, then stirred it in. Added seasoning: salt, white and black pepper, chili powder, cumin, a few shakes of red pepper flakes, some minced garlic, and four bay leaves.
Here’s the chili. It’s gonna cook down on low for another four hours. Around 11 tonight, I’ll take a break from writing diligently to pour myself a bowl and snap some pictures.
