Meat-lovers’ Super Bowl Chili

Copyright 2008 by Cooking With The Single Guy

Ingredients:
2 lb. beef chuck, cut into small chunks
½ lb. ground turkey
1 bottle dark beer, room temperature
2 cans kidney beans (15-oz. can)
1 cup beef or veal broth
1 red onion, diced
1 Anaheim chili, roasted
1 red jalapeno, thinly diced
1 red bellpepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 T chili powder
1 T Spanish smoked paprika (pimenton)
1 T red pepper flakes
1 t Cumin powder
1 t ground cinnamon
2 T flour
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
cayenne pepper

For garnishing:
Grated cheddar cheese
Sour cream
Spring onions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Start by roasting your Anaheim chili. Place on a gas burner or under a broiler to blacken the chili, then place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap to seal in the air. Let it sit for about 10 minutes and then remove the chili from the bowl and peel off the blackened skin. Dice the chili and set aside.

In a dutch oven or other heavy-bottom pot, warm about 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat and then brown turkey and beef chunks in batches on the stovetop. (You may need to add more oil each time you brown a new batch of meat.) Remove meat from pot and set aside. Add more oil to pot and then sauté onion and garlic until translucent (about 3 to 5 minutes), then add the beer. Cook for about 2 minutes and then add meat back to the pot, along with broth, red bellpepper, Anaheim chili and jalapeno pepper. In a small saucepan, heat the dry ingredients (chili powder, smoked paprika, pepper flakes, cumin and cinnamon) until you can smell them (about two minutes) and then toss everything into your pot with the meat.

The broth and what’s left of the beer should barely cover the meat in your dutch oven. If there’s not enough liquid, you can add more broth or water so that the meat is barely covered. Cover your pot and place in oven. Cook for 1 hour until meat is tender.

Drain and rinse your beans. Also prepare a slurry by mixing flour with a bit of water. After the meat has been cooking for about 40 minutes, take the pot out of the oven and add in your beans, and stir in the flour slurry until blended well. This is probably a good time to season it for taste with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper. (You can also adjust later.) Cover and place the pot back in the oven to finish cooking for another 20 minutes.

Remove pot from oven and scoop into bowls. Serve with sour cream, thinly sliced green onions or scallions, grated cheddar cheese and cornbread.

Makes 5 to 6 servings.

Pair with same dark beer used to cook the meat.

TIP: It’s important when browning the meat to not crowd your pot. That’s why I note that you should do it in batches. I actually had to do three batches: one time cooking the ground turkey, and two more times cooking the beef chunks in two batches. You want to get a nice seared color on your meat to seal in the juices.

HOW HOT IS IT?: You can adjust your chili to how hot you want it with the jalapeno and cayenne pepper at the end. For the jalapeno, you can add an extra one if you think one might not be enough. Also, adding the seeds will make it hotter. If you don’t want it too hot, then don’t add the seeds because they contain the heat.

ON TOP: While this recipe calls for a dutch oven and slow cooking your meat in the oven, you can also do the same process on the stove top with a heavy bottom pot. Just reduce it to a simmer after you’ve added all the ingredients. It should still take about an hour to cook on the stovetop.

FORGOT SOMETHING?: For some, you might want your chili with a traditional tomato base. I found that I didn’t need it. But if you want, then you can add a can of plum tomatoes. Just be sure to crush the tomatoes into smaller pieces with your hand, and then add the tomatoes the same time you add the broth. (You may need to adjust the amount of liquid you put in because the tomatoes may have a lot of liquid already. You don’t want your chili to become a stew.)