http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Chion/Colin%20McEnroe%20Show%2008-17-2011.mp3
In the Old West, chili was a sacrament and maybe still is.
Pat Garrett said of Billy the Kid: "Anybody that eats chili cant' be all bad." And the James Brothers repeatedly passed up chances to rob a bank in McKinney Texas, because the chili parlor there was so good they believed the town deserved a break. Kit Carson said, when he died -- and he was about my age -- "I wish I had time for one more bowl of chili."
For that matter Clark Gable had the famous chili served by Chasen's sent to him when he was in the hospital and probably ate some of it the night he died. Will Rogers called chili "a bowl of blessedness" and took pains to taste and rate the chili everywhere he went. He once turned down a banquet meal before a speaking engagement in Tulsa so he could go to his favorite chili parlor there. He said: "I can always eat chicken, but I can't always eat at Ike's."
Today we've got chili on our brains in our stomachs and all over our clothes.
Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.
***************
Wolfie's "Profanchili" recipe:
Chili, as everything, should come with bacon FIRST. slow-cook it till it's brown and crispy, use a slotted spoon to scoop the bits into a large bowl, and put your cubed pork bits in the still-simmering bacon fat. Cook the pork through, because that's what you do with pork. Once you've cooked the pork thoroughly, scoop it into a waiting large pot that will eventually hold everything.
NIFTY TRICK:
Keep your meat in the freezer for about 15 minutes before cutting and cooking. I'm all for some zen time chopping in the kitchen, but if you don't want to struggle with your meat or want to really treat your awesomely sharp knife to a nice time, having the meat just a bit cold makes it worlds easier to cut precisely and safely.
There should still be fatty goodness in the bacon pan, so after cooking the pork and putting it in the big pot, add your red meat to the bacon grease.
I used top sirloin steak, sirloin tips and sirloin stirfry, for, you know, variety. Or something.
Don't cook the red meat all the way through, because it'll cook more while it bubbles away as the finished product.
Put half-cooked meat in the pan with the patiently waiting pork. Sautee chopped garlic in bubbling leftover grease.
Put the crushed-up bacon in the leftover leftover grease, and THEN put in:
-one large chopped onion (or two or three onions, the more the merrier!)
-one chopped red pepper
-one minced habanero pepper
-a handful of chopped jalepenos
(oh, and if you haven't been wearing gloves up to this point? I'd put 'em on for the chili cutting)
Dump ALL the goodness into the big pot of meat. Add water & whiskey. Any whiskey you like. If you're into beer, go for it. Red wine or white wine are delicious in chili, in FACT, chili is the only concoction that I know of that allows wine and beer to work together. It's like the switzerland of food!
You can add your spices now, or you could've added them while sauteeing the meat. Whichever spices you want. I use a LOT of chili powder that my brother brought me from L.A., cumin, cayanne, worcester sauce, soy sauce, a little bit of lime (i'm big on savory), and as a nod to Faith Middleton, a healthy squirt of sriracha.
NOTE that there are NO tomatoes in my chili! No ground beef either! No beans, no rice, no pasta, no unicorn tears, DEFINITELY no unicorn tears.
There's about a cup of a secret ingredient that i'd be stunned if anyone guessed. Every chef needs a secret ingredient. (psst! it's unicorn tears.)
Enjoy and share with the ones you love!
-Wolfie
