One of my husband's favorite meals is Chili Con Carne. When I first had to make this for him, it was a very frustrating task. With memories on how his mother's tasted, I was set up to fail. Then, one day, we learned of his high cholesterol and so I was determined to make his favorite meal, but healthier.
I set myself on a path of figuring out how to fool him. You see, my husband has numerous food phobias and hang-ups. This makes life very tricky, but this time, I was up for the challenge.
The first thing to go from the old recipe was the ground beef. If you know my husband, a chili without meat is not chili, so I found a replacement in ground turkey. And I decided to only add half the amount from my previous recipe.
Vegetables are excellent for everyone, but important if you want to lower your cholesterol. So, I added more in this recipe.
Studies vary on this, but the articles that tell me what I want to hear say that beer and red wine may actually help you keep your cholesterol down. So, if you know my husband, that is a bonus he did not expect. So...add a bottle to your dish.
Then, beans. Good source of protein AND fiber. To keep things interesting, I mix it up with kidney, black and pinto beans.
Finally, I came up with a chili that was flavorful, more healthy and did not sit in my stomach like bricks. What made life so much more pleasurable was that my husband LOVED it! He had no clue I used turkey. The chili was hot enough to make it noticeable, but not too hot. It was great! I, even, made it for other challenging eaters, and again, they could not tell it was turkey!
David's Favorite Chili
1 green bell pepper, minced
1 red bell pepper, minced
1 onion, minced
4 celery stalks, finely sliced
1 pound ground turkey
1 15 oz. can tomato sauce
12 ounces beer
2 15.5 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 15 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 15 oz. can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 15 oz. can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 cup masa corn flour
1. Saute the onions, peppers and celery in a stock pot over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add the meat and cook.
2. Add the beer, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes and cook over low heat until it simmers.
3. Add seasonings and beans, continue to cook another hour.
4. Add masa flour to thicken. Cook an additional 10 minutes.
Serving Ideas: Top with shredded cheese, sliced black olives, sour cream, chopped tomatoes, chopped onions and / or chopped avocado.
Also, great over hot dogs, spaghetti, or accompanied with Ritz crackers or corn bread.
Yields: 8 servings
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Comments: 12
I would need to add about 3 times more spices than this recipe calls for to cover up the turkey taste. Actually I would need to triple the chili powder and add some dried hot peppers just to get it to the level of heat that I am accustomed to.
I am a member of the Chernobyl Fire Station No. 7 Chili Team. We used (before our core triad became dispersed about the country) to cook at the Malibu Chili Cookoff every Labor Day. This used to be the largest single-day fundraiser in the U.S. (allowing all those poor Malibu kids to buy shoes for their polo ponies, I suppose. We used to donate our proceeds to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy). We used to enter the ICS (International Chili Society) competitions, but despite the fact that our chili was consistently rated high by the people who came by to sample it (we made the same chili for competition as we did for giveway, except the latter had to have beans in it; no real chili con carne has beans in it) we never did well on the chili itself (although we got first place for booth and second place for showmanship our first year). We found out that this was because the ICS are a bunch of neo-Platonists. They believe that there is out there in the metaphyscial world a chili "noumenon", an ideal chili towards which all chiliphiles and chiliphages should struggle for emulation. This is arrant cowflop. We dropped out of the ICS-sanctioned comptetition, entered the "People's Choice" competition, and took 1st Prize.
All of this, as well as the testimonials from Gary Busey, Cheech Marin and Larry Hagman, all of whom thought our chili was the Good Stuff, is to esablish my chili credentials. And here is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages in regard to chiuli:
1) Thete's no such thing as "the best chili in the world". There is only the best chili wherever you happen to be, at the time you're there. Sometimes it's yours, sometimes it's not. Make and eat the chili you like best; don't let pompous farts like myself tell you that "it's gotta have ______ to be real chili".
2. Disregard #1; it's gotta have meat to be real chili.
3. The point of chili is to cook meat that cannot be made edible in any other fashion. Get the toughest, orneriest, cheapest meat you can. You're going to be cooking it for at least an hour; why would you want to ruin a top sirloin (as many chili competitors seem to feel is necessary)? Use ground chuck, or better yet, beef shank which you bone and chop yourself. (We also used to put in minced beef tripe and diced beef heart in. It gives it a fantastic depth of flavor and body and you don't have to tell anybody it's there. We tried using beef cheek meat, but besides turning green the moment it leaves the butcher's case, it also cannot be cut or chopped. What does a cow do all day long? I mean besides that? It chews. Its cheek muscles are like truck tires.) But don't buy meat that's too tender or expensive; it's a waste.
4) Get the best, freshest ground spices you can. After they're ground, they expose more surface to the air, and go stale faster. Get them in small amounts and get the best you can.
5) When possible, used fresh chilis instead of, or in addition to, ground. If you chop them fine, saute them for a goodly while, and then simmer them they'll break down adding some bulk, and they'll taste a hell of a lot fresher and more interesting than store bought "chili powder".
6) Two secret ingredients: for every half gallon of chili, add a quarter cup of red wine vinegar and a quarter cup of strong black coffee.
7) No real chili con carne has beans in it. You eat three-bean salad with chili con carne (it is, after all, not a Mexican dish but a Texan dish).
8) Anybody who uses the term "bowl o' red" to mean chili is too self-consciously and folksily quaint to be taken seriously, especially if she's a middle-aged blonde with a beehive hairdo and a cowgirl outfit. Chili isn't for boosters, or costumed cowgirls, or dudes, or anybody with any degree of falsity about them. Chili is for people who want to taste what America tastes like. (A friend of mine by the name "Ormly Gumfudgin", and no, I am not kidding, is currently an ICS judge and a lobbyist trying to have chili con carne declared the national dish of the United States.
Here endeth the lesson.
Course .... I'm from San Antonio, TX, and everything Pete described with such amusement is second nature to us. I'm about to use the "Y" word, so let me apologize in advance. We Texans let you Yankees call that "chili". It makes y'all happy and keeps ya contented.
Clicker, darlin, cumin doesn't have any heat. If its too hot fer ya, it ain't the cumin.
BEANS?!? OMG!!! Don't get me started.
Beer. Hell yes there's beer. Its the only liquid I add to my chili.
And I love it when you Yankees get all pooped out after a pot of your 'chili' has cooked fer an hour. I put a HUGE pot of chili on early in the morning, check on it every hour for a good stir, and plan to eat no earlier than seven that evening. That stuff's gotta cook down, darlin. And I agree with the many recipes of real chili that encourage you to let it sit in the ice box over night and eat it the next day. It truly is a lot better.
All kidding and Texas accent aside, I totally understand your effort to make this a healther dish. My chili is killer good but I never try to pass it off as healthy. In fact, it plays a key part in the most overall unhealthy meal I've ever had. Its my family's signature meal (on my father's side). And they all die early of clogged arteries. I would love to some day publish the collective recipes for that entire meal, to be enjoyed by the very brave and foolish, but I don't want anyone to sue me.
Thank you Jennifer for sharing this healthy-choice recipe. I'll share it with those few of my friends who actually try to do the healthy thing. And thanks in advance to all you Gather readers for not being offended by my Texas humor.