Oh hell yeah. This is my kind of thread.
Nobody in my family eats chili but me so when I make it I can make whatever I want and just freeze the leftovers in portions for lunches.
My sister got married last year and for a gift my wife put together a recipe book of family recipes. She put a few Ukrainian recipes from her grandma, a couple dishes my mom likes to make, and left the rest of the book blank for family to add stuff in. I think my wife added a cookie recipe and I added this...
Uncle Billy's Hot Chocolate ChiliIt's a pretty basic recipe that can be found online, I just made a couple tweaks to a recipe I found to crank up the heat and give it a salty/sweet taste (note: I fucked up the last time I made this and added way too much salt, so don't take this like I know what I'm talking about. I've only made this a few times and it's far from perfect
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What you'll need:-1 1/2 lbs of ground beef
-1 large yellow onion (diced)
-Some cloves of garlic (up to you how much garlic you want, I usually use 3)
-1 can of crushed tomatoes
-1 large or 2 not-so-large jalapeno (diced)
-1 can of black beans
-1 can of kidney beans
-3 tbs chili powder
-3 tbs brown sugar
-1 tsp paprika
-1 tsp cumin
-1 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp pepper
-1 large bottle of chocolate stout beer
-Valentina's hot sauce
What you'll do:1. Heat some oil in a pan and brown the ground beef. Try not to chop it up too much; you want the meat to stay in small chunks to prevent it from cooking all the way through and drying out. After it's nicely browned, strain and set aside.
2. Heat some more oil in a large pot and add in the diced yellow onion and minced garlic cloves.
3. When the onions are starting to brown, throw the meat in and stir.
4. Add the can of crushed tomatoes. Simmer at somewhere between low and medium heat for a few minutes.
5. Add the chili powder, brown sugar, paprika & cumin.
6. Let all that come to a simmer and leave it for 10-15 minutes, stirring once or twice. During that time, strain and rinse the beans.
7. Despite
KJ 's best efforts, add the beans to the pot.
8. Add the salt, pepper, as much or as little of the hot sauce as you like, and 1 cup of the chocolate stout beer.
9. Simmer on low for half an hour to an hour, stirring occasionally.
Some notes and tweaks I made:Most recipes I find online call for less cumin and more spices like cayenne, onion powder, garlic powder, etc. I don't notice a difference and have a huge bag of cumin I need to use up so I just up the amount of cumin and skip the other stuff, since it's already got onion and garlic in it. But feel free to call me stupid and fuck around with spices as much or as little as you want. That's the beauty of chili.
I add a bit more salt than most recipes call for and also slightly more brown sugar, usually equal parts cumin/other spices + brown sugar. I found the flavours really popped with that little extra salt and the added brown sugar gave it a sweet taste without sacrificing the heat.
A couple chocolate/brown sugar recipes I read had a habanero instead of a jalapeno. I chose jalapeno because I was worried that habanero would be too spicy, but I think next time I make this I'm going to use one. Also one recipe said adding a whole dried chipotle added more flavour too so I might also try that. Sounds pretty tasty.
I've also seen recipes that call for adding liquid smoke and/or maple syrup. I think one of these days I'll add both, drop the amount of brown sugar I put in, and/or use regular stout instead of chocolate flavoured.
Also feel free to use whatever hot sauce you want (if you even want to add hot sauce). I just like Valentina's because it's easy to find, not crazy hot, but adds some kick.
