Texas Chili
I cut Lisa Fein’s Seven Chili recipe roughly in half for my hunk of meat, and reduced the chili count to 5 (since restored). I also omitted the coffee per one of the comments.
Ingredients
- 2 lbs. chunkable beef, trimmed and cut to ¼" cubes.
- olive oil
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 16 oz. Guinness
- ½ c. water
- ½ T. ground cumin
- ½ tsp. oregano
- ¼ tsp. ground cinnamon
- ⅛ tsp. ground clove
- ¼ tsp. ground allspice
- ¼ tsp. cayenne
- ¼ tsp. grated Mexican chocolate
- ½ tsp. kosher salt, plus more to taste
- 1 T. masa harina (optional)
Chiles
- 2 anchos (or 4–5, about 3 oz., if skipping the others)
- 1 pasilla
- 1 guajillo
- 2 arbols
- 1 chipotle (I used canned, not dried)
- 2 piquins
- ½ c. water
Directions
- Stem and seed chiles.
- Toast all but the piquins in a dry saute pan for about 10 seconds per side (to puff).
- Add water to cover and bring to a boil.
- Soak ½ hour.
- Meanwhile, in a heavy pot, brown the beef in the oil.
- Remove beef and cook onions until translucent.
- Add garlic briefly, then return beef to pot.
- Add remaining non-chile ingredients except masa harina, and bring to a boil.
- Puree all the chiles in the ½ c. water.
- Add puree to pot.
- Once it’s boiling, reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 3–4 hours.
- Scoop out some broth to combine with masa harina, then add back.
- Simmer ½ hour longer.
Variants
Tortilla chips are supposed to be a good substitute for masa harina, but I ended up skipping that step altogether.
You can make the chili in a crockpot: chop the beef chunkier (1 inch) and toss in fresh chilis (if you have them) as in Spicy 3 Chilies Texas Chili a la Crock Pot, or follow the chili mash procedure above. You can crock it on high for 5 hours according to Mike Vrobel instead of the 8–10 hours at low you see elsewhere; he also recommends browning one batch of the beef only, on one side only.
