I made over-the-top smoked chili

Anyone here prepare their chili with maize flour and dark beer?

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It’s fine that you don’t like beans. That’s your loss. Calling them ‘valueless carbs’ is taking it too far mate.

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I’ve never been able to decide if I like or hate rye bread.

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it isn’t hate, i love a good pinto bean stew and i make a really good taco soup. the addition of beans is fine, it’s just not chili once you do. it would be like making fettucine with cream, parsley, and velveeta and calling it al fredo. it might be edible or even palatable but it is no longer al fredo.

eta-- in the happy mutant food thread i have my favorite chili recipe:

Beans, beans, they are good for your heart.
The more you eat, the more you fart.
The more you fart the better you feel
So eat your beans with every meal.

I mean letting rank toots isn’t a pleasant thing, but I generally find people don’t eat enough fiber and beans certainly help with that. I’m all for putting beans in things.

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That analogy doesn’t track with me. To me that’s saying you are replacing beef with chicken or tofu as it’s a main component of the chili. What if you add broccoli to your al fredo? Is it no longer al fredo or have you just joined an additional flavor on to the original?

I mean I’m from NC, chili doesn’t particularly hold any type of reverence for me. Now when you say BBQ that has a very narrow definition when paired with any NC style of it. So yeah, I get the emotion behind the bean hate.

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That isn’t what children’s television taught me.

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Chili is one of those foods that I miss making. I couldn’t eat shop bought cans because of food allergies and after I got CFS doing anything more complex that putting chillies and pepperoni on a pizza became very hard.

I still like reading about all the different variations on making good food though.

Chili isn’t chili without beans… it’s runny sloppy joes without the bun.

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I love this idea, as an apartment dweller you’re giving me even more grill envy than I already suffer from.

That first photo of the ball of smoked ground meat: not sure that I would be able to resist just eating it as is. Perhaps my method would be, once I gtfoh and have a house with a grill, one ball of meat for the chili pot and one ball of meat for me.

Re: beans — also agree. They have no place in chili. Beans are best with rice and roast pork or chicken, or pureed and inside agnolotti.

ETA: wondering about maximizing surface area of the meat wad in order to capture more smoke, and my geometry knowledge is failing me. What has more surface area, a sphere or a flattened disc? I will google this later, but I seem to feel like spheres have the least surface area…

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my wife uses Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout, super good in chili.

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it’s well established that beans are super healthy, yeah. it’s ok – i make all-bean chili to pick up the slack for all the people who don’t use them.

yeah, rye is one of those things that some people don’t like. i really love it.

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It’s not so much the assumption that chilli can’t have beans, but the one that it must have beef that rankles. Cos that just ain’t the truth. Totally possible to be sin carne (and of course before Europeans they didn’t have cow meat or its like in Mexico).

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Looks really good!

Entering the volatile bean topic here.
IT is my understanding that citizens of Texas have specific terms for Chili containing either beans or ground beef. They are called “Bean soup” or “Hamburger soup” respectively. I do not adhere to these restrictions.

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Hm, I braise some kinda’ meat that’s high in connective tissue (oxtail, or, better yet, venison shanks) seasoned with chili seasonings with mirepoix, and dried chilis (California, for example) and use the resulting liquid for the base.
Sometimes I deglaze with bourbon.

Cold smoking the seasoned meat first is also an excellent idea.

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  1. Beans are not useless carbs. They’re much more than carbs and far from useless. Try making a good cassoulet sometime.

  2. What the hell is peanut butter doing in chili here?

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I never have the onion or garlic powder. But I’ve been experimenting with those dirt cheap mexican herbs, best route to go if you are collecting a wide variety. I put together a jar of the supposedly leaked KFC secret herbs & spices (and modified it). It worked really well for fish n chips. So I’m due for more. Where I live, they also have them at the indian markets.

I do add beans. It has a tendency to give you a range of experience of that pot of chili and I enjoy that. It thickens up over time. The Instant Pot is such a godsend. I also learned how to do refried beans in it and to all my Mexican friends I have to say, I finally “get it.” It’s a whole different world from canned or even restaurant product.

Agree. And if I don’t have corn I’ll use a bit of masa or corn flour to thicken. It isn’t just budget, there are other reasons to go not as heavy on the red meat.

I can’t find the story now, but there’s a restaurant in far southern california that makes a different mole variety every single day. I think it’s in San Diego County.

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I was pleased with the mole that I made only once.
I used high test bar chocolate that is spendy but available
just about everywhere these days.
Also, I made it a bit French because I don’t like adding bread to stuff.
I made roux using masa.
It was smother that mole usually is but it didn’t deter, in my opinion.

You’re right though, mole IS magic.

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chili - NO beans.

+beans? = stew or soup or something.

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