Creative Commons license photo, credit: Laertes
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Monthly Archives: June 2010
DOWN HOME DIG-IN CHILI
Get ready for a big spicy spoonful of chili! In the winter, give me chili with cornbread and cabernet; in the summer I’ll have chili with tortillas and tequila (or cold beer). What a flavorful, succulent meal it is! You’ll find chili everywhere, north, south, east and west; in cookbooks, food magazines and websites (like this one), with many of those authors claiming to divulge “the authentic” recipe. Particularly in the Southern US, chili recipes provoke discussions almost as heated as the peppers they contain. But, I’m ready to jump into the fire, by sharing with you my husband’s favorite recipe. It’s not the hottest or the spiciest chili you’ll find, but it’s meaty, delicious and the best he’s ever encountered. He made it for me for the first time when we started dating and we’ve cooked it together many, many times since then.
DOWN HOME DIG-IN CHILI
(from Bon Appetit, 1988)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 medium onions, finely chopped
2 green bell peppers, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 1/2 lbs stewing beef, chopped
2 lbs pork shoulder (Boston butt), chopped
4 cans (14 1/2 ounce) stewed tomatoes, drained, liquid reserved
salt and pepper to taste
1 bottle pale ale (12 ounce)
7 Tbs chili powder
4 jalapeno chilies, seeded
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp cumin
Hot pepper sauce (Tabasco type), to taste
Heat the oil in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add finely chopped onions, bell peppers, celery, and garlic and saute until onions are translucent, about 10 minutes. Remove vegetables using slotted spoon and set aside.
Increase heat to high. Add beef and pork; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook until browned, stirring frequently, about 10 minutes. Return vegetables to pot. Add tomatoes, ale, chili powder chilies, cayenne and cumin. Reduce heat, cover partially and simmer 2 hours, adding reserved tomato liquid if chili appears dry. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Uncover and simmer until thickened and meat is tender, 2 more hours.
Season chili with hot pepper sauce. Serve with green onions, cheddar cheese, avocado and sour cream.
Makes at least 8 servings.
ENJOY!
to print the recipe, click here
Comments: This favorite version of ours might very well be “middle-of-the-road” in the debate about what should (or should not) be in a pot of chili. It doesn’t include beans, pleasing many, but it uses tomatoes, upsetting other purists.
We usually make it with beef and pork, and we recently tried a mixture of lamb and pork. We prefer this version, exactly as published 22 years ago (!!!) in Bon Appetit, by far. Some markets sell ground beef for chili, but it’s better to buy a large cut of beef chuck, some pork shoulder and cut them by hand into 3/4 inch cubes. The final texture is well worth the extra work.
Chili is ideal for entertaining, as it gets better when it sits in the fridge for a day. Sometimes we make a full batch, enjoy “chili for two,” and save leftovers in the freezer for an encore another time.
This dish deserves recognition as a “Perfect Saturday Night Dinner” !
ONE YEAR AGO… CINNAMON ROLLS
GOOD MORNING!
This tree is very close to our bedroom window, the first thing I see when we open the curtains…
Life is good!
A TWIST ON PESTO
Even though I know that the word “pesto” refers to pounding ingredients into a paste (preferably using a mortar and pestle), I tend to associate it with basil – the classic pesto Genovese. So, this recipe using cilantro as the main herb perked my interest. I found it in the latest issue of Bon Appetit, and it seemed perfect for this time of the year, in which the temperature approaches 100 F every day, with no rain in the horizon. Not that there’s anything wrong with it… 😉
LINGUINE WITH CILANTRO-LIME PESTO & SHRIMP
(adapted from Bon Appetit)
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 pound linguine
1 + 1/2 bunches fresh cilantro leaves
1/4 cup green onion, cut in large pieces
1/2 serrano pepper, seeded, quartered
1 garlic clove, minced
3 Tbs lime juice
salt and pepper
1/2 cup olive oil
3 Tbs tequila
cotija cheese to taste, grated (or crumbled feta)
To make the cilantro pesto:
Place the cilantro leaves in the bowl of a food processor and process it for a few seconds. Add the green onion, jalapeno pepper, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper, and process for 30 seconds. With the machine on, pour the olive oil until a thick paste forms – you may need a little more or a little less olive oil. (I usually opt for a lot less than recipes call for).
Cook the pasta until al dente. While the pasta cooks, heat 1 Tbs olive oil in a large skillet, add the shrimp and cook until it just starts to get opaque. Remove from heat, add the tequila, bring back to the stove and cook for about 30 seconds, until the tequila achieves a syrupy consistency. Add the pesto to it, cook a few seconds to warm it up. Add the cooked pasta and mix everything together until shrimp, sauce and pasta are well blended. Grate some cotija cheese on top and serve.
ENJOY!
to print the recipe, click here
Comments: Cilantro haters will have to forgive me, but this pesto rocks! At first I thought this recipe could end as a major gastronomic disaster, due to cilantro overload, but its taste mellowed down in the final sauce. I had never tried cotija cheese, and did not particularly cared for its texture, but grated over the pasta it worked very well. Many people dislike adding cheese to seafood dishes, but I don’t have a problem with it: it definitely embellished this pasta.
One year ago: WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU CHARD…
MELLOW BAKERS: PIZZA! PIZZA!
My second recipe for the month of June in the Mellow Bakers Challenge is Hamelman’s pizza dough. I was anxious to try this one, to compare it with my favorite recipe, that you can find here. Hamelman’s dough uses a biga – a pre-ferment of flour, water, and yeast – that is incorporated in the final dough, together with a small amount of additional yeast. Apart from that, the recipes are quite similar.
Last week we had a small pizza party at home, and Hamelman’s method was put to the test. It passed with flying colors, or… should I say… ballooning colors!
In the Summer, we avoid turning the oven on, so we use our grill as an improvised oven, placing unglazed tiles over its grids, and cooking the pizza on them. This is not a grilled pizza, simply a regular pizza baked inside the grill. Once you get the temperature right, it works like a charm, each pizza will be ready in about 7 minutes. My husband was the one who had the idea for this “oven-grill-method”, yet another evidence that I won the jackpot when I married him.
So, what’s the verdict? This dough deserves to share the first prize with my default recipe – excellent texture and flavor. The only thing that prevents me from placing it ahead of Fine Cooking, is the 2 hour rise with a folding cycle after 1 hour. That makes it slightly more complicated to have pizza on a weeknight. But, it is a minor detail, and I will definitely be making this recipe again and again during the weekend.
I remind everyone that we are not supposed to share the recipes for our Mellow Bakers Challenge, so if you are interested, consider buying Hamelman’s book “Bread”, where all these recipes will be waiting for you… 😉
That evening, we made 8 pizzas, this one was particularly tasty: sauteed cremini mushrooms, roasted yellow bell peppers, and smoked mozzarella. Pizza parties are a lot of fun!
Many Mellow Bakers have already enjoyed their pizzas, if you want to see their report, jump here.
One year ago: From Backyard to Kitchen….
Bewitching Kitchen 