Get Ready for a Super Beefy Sunday

Super Bowl XLII is this Sunday, and I for one can’t wait. When millions are glued to their TVs (don’t forget, 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. Pacific), that’s also the best time to go grocery shopping or catch a movie. Ha!

OK, so I know some of you will be watching the game (either Eli following in his brother’s footsteps or the beginning of the Brady Dynasty) and probably preparing to feed some hungry fans. So I decided to come up with the following chili recipe, just because it’s been cold around the Bay Area lately so I wanted to make something comforting.

I didn’t really grow up with chili, so I can’t say I know what makes a traditional chili. There’s no Hawaiian standard, although in Hawaii we would eat the chili from this chain called Zippy’s (all you local folks in the islands know what I’m talking about) and their chili always seemed like the meat sauce in spaghetti.

I can’t say that my chili is influenced by any particular region. Some might think it has a Southwest flavor because I decided to roast an Anaheim chili and add that in. Some might think it’s more Midwest because I add beans (and according to Tyler Florence, there’s no beans in traditional Texas-style chili).

I also made it with two types of meat: beef chuck and ground turkey. I added the beef chuck because I like chili that has small chunks of beef instead of just ground meat. I think this makes it more hearty. But I also added ground turkey because, well, I had some extra in my refrigerator but also because I do often associated chili with ground meat. So you get the best of both worlds (and a whole lot of meat).

You might also notice in the recipe that there are no tomatoes, which I found were often put into chili recipes I researched. I actually did buy a can of plum tomatoes and was all ready to add it in. You see, I often keep my recipes fairly simple with very few ingredients. But with chili, you really can’t get away with multiple ingredients because you want a lot of different layers of flavor, especially when concocting your chili spices. Because of that, I was so distracted with cooking the meat and jotting down ingredients as I added them that I forgot to add in the tomatoes until it was too late.

But you know what? I didn’t really miss them. I think the tomatoes would have made the chili less brown and more red, and I sometimes associate that color with a beef stew. So since I was going for a really heavy-duty chili (which is why I also added in dark beer), I thought the dark brown coloring in the end was appropriate. You can try it and let me know if I made a touchdown or an incomplete pass. ;-) Enjoy!