Infernal Yankee Carpetbagger Chili

Originally Posted by Sean10mm

This is a chili recipe that I developed over the course of several months for a chili cook-off where I work in Texas. It isn't even remotely authetnic (hence the title), but it IS good, and should be pretty dang healthy too. It uses mega-lean 98% ground sirloin, and makes up the difference in fat with olive oil. Not low calorie, but much better for your cholesterol than beef fat.

I've gotten Texans to admit it is really good, even if they won't admit it is "real" chili because of the beans. The beans specified are chosen because of their low-gas properties; they also look cool and taste good.

This recipe was designed for a crockpot, which takes forever but lets you be incredibly lazy once everything is in the crockpot. Presumably you could cook it faster over higher heat in a big pot if you wanted to, but that would involve alot of stirring and stuff.

Infernal Yankee Carpetbagger Chili

Ingredients

Meat:

• 1 lb 98% lean ground sirloin

Vegetables, fresh:

• 1 sweet yellow onion, chopped
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 1 bunch green onions, chopped
• 2 Jalapeno peppers, seeded & finely chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 tbsp crushed garlic
• 2 large shallots, chopped

Canned & dried goods:

• 3 cans diced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup low sodium/low fat beef broth
• 1/2 cup medium Arriba Fire Roasted Red Salsa
• 1-1/2 cup uncooked Anasazi beans

Spices:

• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp Hot Shot™ pepper mix
• 1 tsp ground chipotle pepper
• 1 tsp ground ancho pepper
• 1 tsp Chinese chili garlic paste
• 1 tsp ground dry mustard
• 2 packets Sugar in the Raw
• 2 tsp salt
• Worcestershire sauce

Miscellaneous:

• 1/2 cup beer
• 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

Bring 5 cups of water to a boil; add 1 cup dry beans. Boil 2-3 minutes, and then cover and set aside for a couple hours. Drain and rinse beans thoroughly before cooking. This will remove alot of the indigestible sugars that cause gas. Anasazi beans also have much less of these than most beans to start with. If you want the chili to be ready quicker, cook the beans a few minutes longer, but I like them to do most of their cooking in the chili so they soak up more flavor & don't totally disintegrate in the chili.

Chop up all the onions, peppers and shallots. This is a pain in the ass, especially since I like to chop them up pretty fine (figure roughly 1/2"x1/2", yes I'm insane). The jalepenos in particular should be chopped super-fine, so you get a little bit in every bite instead of a OMG FOUND A PEPPER every once in a while.

In a bowl, mix the ground sirloin with the olive oil. You can omit the olive oil if you use fattier meat, but this is obviously less "healthy." Note that olive oil + lean meat = great taste, at least to me.

In a large skillet, brown the ground sirloin at medium-high heat. I've found that, if left alone, this stuff won't brown well because the fat content is so low; it just gives up a bunch of watery liquid and boils in there after a minute or two. So when that happens, drain off and discard the liquid and get back to browning. You don't want the meat to just turn gray; you want some actual browning to go on.

Next, add the garlic, chili powder and a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce and stir around until well mixed.

Finally, add the onions and shallots, and stir over medium-high heat until the onions start to look clear. Add to the crock pot.

Add the beans and remaining seasonings and other ingredients to the crock pot, stir and cover. Set to high heat until it starts to bubble, then simmer over low heat overnight. Let the crock pot cool down (say an hour), then set it in the fridge until you are ready to eat.

NOTES:

This produces a fairly mild chili. It seems hot at first because of the raw jalapeno peppers, but these get milder as the chili cooks. It has some heat and spice to it, but won't set your head on fire or anything.

The longer you cook it, the better it will turn out. 12 hours is probably ideal, 8 hours will do if you cook the beans a little longer before they go in the chili. The upside is that, with the crock pot, you basically just stir it a couple times and ignore it.