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“The World’s Greatest Chili”

Kirsten — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 23:38:34 +0000

I made this chili a couple of months ago while I was testing out various chilis for a chili cook-off, and because it didn’t end up being the one, I never got around to posting it. I kind of forgot about it until recently when I’ve found myself defrosting the leftovers for quick dinners. I realize it’s not exactly chili season, but here in Minnesota we’re heading into a cool, rainy weekend so I thought it would be appropriate.

Also, while I am not completely convinced that this is the world’s greatest chili, Rick Bayless claims that it is so I’m going to go with his name. It’s really good and definitely worth making, whether or not it is in fact the greatest. Chili seems to be a very personal thing, so maybe you will find it to be the most amazing chili you’ve ever had. The one thing that I really love about it is the addition of masa harina. It serves as a thickener and adds a great flavor – kind of like you just threw the side of cornbread into the chili, but with a slightly milder taste. Plus, since you only need 2 tbsp of masa harina, you can use the rest to make tortillas. Win-win!

The World’s Greatest Chili

From Rick & Lanie’s Excellent Kitchen Adventures

2 ounces dried ancho chiles (about 4 large), stems and seeds discarded, torn into pieces

1 medium onion, cut into 1/4-inch pieces

1 1/2 pounds ground beef

3 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped

1 tsp ground cumin

1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes (preferably fire-roasted)

1 15-ounce can pinto beans, drained and rinsed

2 tbsp masa harina

Grated cheese, chopped green onions, or sour cream for serving

Serves 4-6

Heat a dutch oven or a large, heavy pot over medium heat. Toast the chiles one at a time for 10-15 seconds on each side. Transfer to a bowl, and cover with hot water. Put a plate or another bowl on top of them so they are completely submerged. Set aside while you get started on the meat.

Note: For some reason I skipped out on the toasting part and just submerged the whole chiles in hot water. I’m assuming the flavor of the chili changes with toasted chiles, but if you skip that step it’s not the end of the world. Just make sure you get rid of the chile stems and seeds at some point.

Using the same large pot, turn up the heat to medium-high, add a couple of tablespoons of oil or bacon drippings, and add the beef and onion. Break up the meat, and continue cooking until it browns, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and drain off any fat.

The chiles should be done soaking by the time the meat is done, so drain off the water and add the chiles to the bowl of a food processor along with the garlic, cumin, and tomatoes (with their juice).

Process until smooth.

Position a mesh strainer over the pot of meat and onions. Pour the chile and tomato mixture into the strainer.

Use a rubber spatula to press the mixture through.

This takes a bit of time, but with a little persistence you will end up with a strainer full of seeds and chile skins and a smooth sauce on the other side.

Stir to coat the meat and onions, and heat over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes.

Add two cups of water and 1 1/2 tsp salt. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for about 45 minutes.

Add the masa harina…

…and the beans. Simmer for an additional 5 minutes.

Season with salt, if needed.

Serve with grated cheese and green onion. As is generally the case with chili, this freezes well.

Filed under: Beef, Soup

Kyle’s D.I.M. Lengua – A Bright Idea.

Kirsten — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:34:00 +0000

Kirsten graciously gave me the opportunity to guest host her blog for the day. I hope I live up to the expectations of her many fans.

About a month ago, my lovely wife and I moved to Evanston Illinois, where I’m now employed as a post-doctoral fellow at Northwestern. We’re both crazy about the area. Chicago obviously rules. The town of Evanston is nice, if sleepy compared to my traditional view of college towns. It is also relatively “upscale.” As a result, I have zero access to the vast array of tacos that I had become accustomed to in Carrboro, NC at any of the 5 or 6 taco trucks that set up shop in random parking lots around town each afternoon. That wouldn’t fly here.

Now let me tell you – I’m crazy about “organ meats,” i.e. those edible organs other than traditionally-consumed muscles (liver, kidney, etc.). Mexican taquerias are an easy way to fulfill my organic needs, another is a Chinese restaurant that caters to real Chinese people, who love eating weird shit even more than I do. While not an organ as I defined above (it’s a muscle), beef tongue is one thing I always get if a mexican restaurant cooks it.

To finally get to the point of this post, I decided that since I can’t buy lengua tacos without driving deep into Chicago, I will have to Do It Myself (D.I.M.). To document this journey, I have co-opted the methods of my sister, who traditionally begins with a personal anecdote (check) leading up to a certain food being mentioned (check), cooked, and consumed with pictures taken throughout (see below).

On to the cooking. I had already decided that I would use my trusted slow-cooker in this endeavor. I typically eschew recipes in favor of intuition but, nevertheless, here is a rough ingredients list.

For the meat:

1 beef tongue – mine was a shade shy of 3 lbs and purchased at an eastern European specialty store/deli. It ran about $8.50.
1 onion – I had an additional half onion in my fridge so I threw that in also
2 bottles of Guinnes Extra Stout
1 cup of coffee
a few nuggets of garlic
a few guajillo chiles that were lying around
almost a tablespoon of sea salt – I remember seeing people online cooking their tongues with a lot of salt so I followed suit
a few teaspoons of Ground cayenne pepper
a light sprinkling of ground cloves (seriously, easy easy those cloves!)

I think that the tongue should be an ideal meat for standing up to these powerful flavors. We’ll see…

Other stuff

small corn tortillas
cilantro, a bit more onion, and a lime to make the garnish to put on the tacos

Here are the assembled components:

I had to cut the tongue in half to fit it into my slow cooker – That baby is as big as my arm from the elbow down:

I threw that in the pot…

…and added the contents of one of the bottles of beer and a cup of coffee.

As for preparation of the rest of the stuff, let’s face it, using a slow cooker is not rocket science. Chop it up and throw it in. Having said that, I tend to very coarsely chop onions when using my slow cooker because it makes it easier to remove them after everything is cooked and I don’t like mushy onions. Because I’m proud of my big blue chopping block, here’s some crushed/chopped garlic!:

Once all the chopped stuff, salt and spices were added, I bathed the beast in the second beer and set it on low.

For the record, cooking began at 11:30 A.M.

Whenever I cook with my slow cooker, even on a lazy Sunday like today when I might be tempted to sit around playing Xbox for 12 hours, I make a point of leaving the house for a while so that I can come back, walk in the door, and smell the goodness. I also think it’s good luck, like not changing your underwear during the NHL playoffs.

At 6:30, I removed the meat from the pot and sliced it cross-wise into half-inch “steaks.”

Then I trimmed the skin off, as one would do with a section of a pineapple. I sliced the tongue into half-inch strips, then half-inch cubes and, to finish it off, I browned it in a frying pan.

While frying the cubes, I heated the oven to 200 and put some corn tortillas in there to warm up. I also chopped some cilantro and onions and mixed it together with some lime juice to put on the tacos.

Final step – make tacos.

They came out very good. Excellent. I won’t try to speak too eloquently about the flavors and texture and all that, but I’ll say that they’re as good or better than the ones I was eating at the Mexican taco stands. I recommend them without reservation.

If I did the whole batch as tacos today, I think it would serve 4-5 people, but I only ended up slicing half of the tongue. I’ll cut the rest and then I can fry some up whenever I want. Maybe with eggs in the morning?

Posted in Beef

Enchiladas Verdes de Pollo

Kirsten — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:38:00 +0000

Don’t speak Spanish? Neither does my dad. He would call these “enchiladas verdes de polo.” You know, polo. That little bird whose body runs around after its head is cut off. It’s always fun going to Mexican restaurants with my dad because you get to listen to his amazing Spanish. Even after traveling to many a Spanish-speaking country, he tells waiters, “I am vegetariano. No carne. No polo…” He is pretty good with “gracias,” though. And he always buys, so I guess I shouldn’t be making fun of his Spanish skills.

I’ve been on a big salsa verde kick lately, and I don’t see an end in sight. I picked up a jar of tomatillo salsa at Trader Joe’s a while back, and I’ve been waiting for an excuse to use it. After roasting a chicken last week I had a couple large chicken breasts in the fridge, as well as a bag of corn tortillas, so enchiladas were an obvious choice. I must not be the only one experiencing salsa verde cravings, because when I started searching for recipe ideas enchiladas verdes were on the front page of Homesick Texan. Although I didn’t end up trying her recipe (yet), I took its popping up on the first page of the first place I looked as a sign. I consulted my Rick Bayless cookbook and quickly got to work on some polo enchiladas.

Enchiladas Verdes de Pollo

Adapted from Rick Bayless’s Mexican Everyday

2 large chicken breasts, cooked (or 2-3 cups of any other part of the chicken)

10oz fresh spinach*

1 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp cayenne

1 cup corn

12oz tomatillo salsa

8-10 corn tortillas

1-1/2 cups cheese, grated (Monterey Jack, cheddar, Chihuaua)

Pickled jalepenos (optional)

Sour cream, guacamole, and cilantro for serving

These were the leftover chicken parts I had in the fridge. I ending up throwing the wing into the bag of chicken parts I’m going to make stock with rather than trying to pull off the little bit of meat to add to the enchiladas, but I took this picture before I made that decision.

Use a fork to shred the chicken or cut it up into small pieces.

Heat a little oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the spinach and cook until it wilts. Season with a little salt and remove from the heat. I also sprinkled some cumin and cayenne into the mix because I have this little voice in my head that tells me to add cumin to every Mexican meal I make.

I added the chicken to the skillet because the recipe I was kind of following said to add it, but then I realized that the enchiladas don’t actually get cooked so the ingredients need to be warm. Since I baked my enchiladas, adding the chicken at this point was completely unnecessary.

Combine the spinach and chicken with the corn.

Then start stuffing tortillas.

Wedge as many enchiladas as you can into an 8×8″ dish.

Oops! I stuck the assembled enchiladas in the fridge for a few hours, and the tortillas did not fare well.

Solution: toothpicks. Pour tomatillo salsa over the tortillas, and throw on some pickled jalepenos if you’re into that kind of thing. I would have added more had I been cooking for just myself, but since Matt was going to be enjoying them as well I had to take it easy on the heat. I guess it all worked out since he ended up picking off all the jalepenos and giving them to me.

Top with a generous dose of cheese. I opted for monterey jack because it melts well and creates a nice, cheesy blanket over the enchiladas.

Look, Mom and Judy Haar, I used a full-length oven mitt so I wouldn’t burn myself again!

Bake at 350 for 15 or 20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted.

Sour cream is a must for topping these off. Guacamole is tasty, too.

The best part about having to use toothpicks was ending up with the cheesy equivalent of candles on a birthday cake.

I don’t remember this from the first night we ate these, but when I was eating leftovers the next couple of days the tortillas had soaked up some of the salsa liquid and became the consistency of tamales. It was awesome.

*One final note: I’m still not sure how I feel about the spinach in these enchiladas. I added it because 1) I had it in the fridge, 2) it made me feel a little better about the large quantities of cheese I was using, and 3) the recipe I was kind of following was for spinach and mushroom enchiladas. The flavor turned out to be a little strong, so next time I might either eliminate it or replace it with beans. Any suggestions?

Posted in Cheese, Chicken

Steak Fajitas with Lime Marinade

Kirsten — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:00:00 +0000

I love Mexican food about as much as I love life itself, but for some reason I’ve never made fajitas. I always go for tacos or enchiladas, but fajitas are going to be my new default. They are incredibly easy and require very few ingredients. Whereas with tacos I always feel like I need to have lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, salsa, sour cream, and maybe guacamole, fajitas only require meat, tortillas, an onion, and a pepper. You can add additional stuff if you want, but as long as you have four main ingredients you’re set. Because of their simplicity you can easily make them post-happy hour when your motor skills may not be at their peak.

I wasn’t planning on taking pictures of the fajitas, but my two fellow FLA (Future Lawyers of America) members and kitchen helpers were more concerned with being on my blog than getting food in their mouths as soon as possible, so you have them to thank for this post.

Steak Fajitas

Marinade from The Big Book of Easy Suppers

Marinade:

1 lime

3 oz. dry white wine

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1/2 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp freshly ground pepper

Fajitas:

1lb. top sirloin

2 green bell peppers

1 yellow onion

1-2 tomatoes

Tortillas

Cumin

Oregano

Olive oil

Salt

Whisk together all of the marinade ingredients. It makes about 1/2 cup, so you don’t need a huge bowl.

Add the steak and the marinade to a large ziplock bag. Refrigerate for a few hours.

When you’re about to make the fajitas, take the meat out of the refrigerator to allow it to come to room temperature before cooking. Slice the peppers and the onion into long strips. Slice a tomato into half moon shapes.

Heat a tablespoon or two of olive oil in a pan over medium-high, and brush a griddle or grill with a little olive oil over high heat. Throw the meat on the grill and the veggies in the pan. If your pan isn’t big enough you can just add the excess to the griddle. Or if you want to save yourself from washing a pan you could cook it all on the griddle.

Add a little cumin and oregano to the veggies as they cook. It’s really fun, as you can see.

When the onions and peppers have softened up a little, add a sliced tomato or two. Cook the veggies until the onions and peppers are a little soft but still crunchy.

Hi, Kate and Garin. If anyone needs some cheese grated, a batch of guacamole whipped up, or information on acceptable times for housewarming parties give these two a call.

Cook the meat until it’s medium rare or so (8-10 minutes), and then slice it into strips.

Serve with warm tortillas and guacamole. And cheese. And hot sauce. And a cold beer.

Posted in Beef