Carnivorous Chili & Vegetarian Chili | Basics with Babish
Hey, folks, today's episode is sponsored by Bounty Paper Towels, who are here to remind me that it's OK to make a mess in the kitchen, which I'm most certainly about to do because today's episode is about Super Bowl chili. The media's chili in the world and the least meaty. So no matter who you watch in the game with, there's a chili recipe for you. Bounty is two times more absorbent and picks up spills quicker than that leading ordinary brand so you can clean up fast and get right back to cooking. Now let's get down to basics.
So of the first things, we have
to talk about when making chili are chilies. I'm using whole dried chilies
which are going to impart a whole lot more and a wider diversity of flavors.
Here I've got some perceived chilies which are earthy and chocolaty, some Arbel
chilies, which are pretty much just hot. Some Chipotle chilies which are just
smoked Holle opinions. So they're hot and they have the nice, smoky, earthy
flavor. They smell good, too. So make sure you give them a nice sniff. Then
I've got some Gallahue low chilies. These are medium heat, red chili. They're a little fruity, a little
smoky. They're going to bring some of the brighter flavors to our chili paste.
And then the all-important ancho chili, which is just a dried poblano chili. So
it is positively packed with a smoky, fruity raisin-like flavor. You can mix
and match as you see fit, but ideally, you want a good mixture of heat, flavor,
fruitiness, and smokiness. Whatever chilies you use, we are moving their stems,
seeds and tearing them into small pieces. Then to amp up their flavor, we're
going to dry roast them in a pan, which basically just means put them in a
large stainless steel skillet, no oil and toss them around over medium-high
heat for three to five minutes until they're fragrant but not smoking. They
were to lower the heat and rehydrate the chilies by covering them with water
just enough to comfortably cover the chilies which were then going to bring to
a simmer and cover, killing the heat and letting steep for 10 minutes, at which
point we're going to dump everything chilies and they're soaking liquid into a
high powered blender where we're gonna blend them on high speed for about a
minute until they're nice and smooth.
Rewarding us with a thick, flavorful, fragrant
chili paste, which is just gonna run circles around any powders you could have
gotten out of a bottle. It's a great all-purpose chili paste that could be used
in myriad recipes, including both of the ones that we're making today, the
meatiest and the least meaty chilies in the world. Let's start with the
Mediaset chili cone. Karney A chili that requires some karney ideally a whole
chuck roast that we're gonna break down traum of any silver skin or excess fat
and cut into about half-inch bite-sized cubes. Now we're gonna be searing some
of these cubes for flavor, which means that we're gonna want them nice and dry.
Enter today's sponsor bounty paper towels. First, we're to lay the meat out on
a single layer and generously salted with kosher salt. Let it sit at room
temperature for about 10 minutes and then use paper towels to block them as dry
as you can. Too much moisture on the meat equals steam equals not Browning. And
not Browning is the opposite of what we don't want. So before it gets too
confusing, let's head over to the stovetop where we are heating some vegetable
oil over medium-high heat until it's just starting to give off wisps of smoke.
And then we're browning about half of our meat
on each side. We do not need to brown all the meat. I repeat we do not need to
brown all the meat. Only browning half is going to introduce plenty of
flavor into our chili, primarily in the form of fond, you know, all that
beautiful brown stuff on the bottom of the pot. Back over on the workshop, we
are sanitizing everything with undiluted white vinegar, followed by hydrogen
peroxide, which should keep a wooden cutting board nice and clean for incoming
onions, which we're just going to roughly chop before introducing to all that
fondant flavor and fat in the bottom of the pot. Sweating those out over medium
heat until they're soft and golden. And then we're gonna crush in a whole lot
of garlic. Talking like six cloves that we're going to say, let's say with the
onions until fragrant about one minute and then comes the time to deglaze. In this
case with chicken stock, preferably homemade chicken stock. But sometimes you
don't have any handy and the buck stuff works fine for four worth. Make sure
these scrape up all the good stuff on the bottom of the pot and then it's time
to add our meat Sered and Unser to like.
Last but not least, our precious
chili paste at about a cup and a half's worth. It's going to depend entirely on
how many chilies and what kinds of chilies you use in your paste. Bring this
guy up to a simmer and then it's time to add some spices. A nice shake of
cinnamon to shake off allspice, a shake of ground, coriander seed, a generous
shake of oregano, a very generous shake, and two to three tablespoons tomato
paste, totally optional. Then we're just going to partially cover and let this
guy simmer until the beef is tender and the stew has thickened anywhere from
one and a half to three hours. Now, you might notice that as far as recipes go,
this one is rather lax. And that's because I think the secret recipe for the
best chili is no recipe at all. Just keep tasting and tweaking and seeing how
the flavors change over time. Feel the chili. Let the chili flow through you
and not in that way. Once the beef is tender, in the case of Chili Con Khani,
it is time to thicken for this task. We use two to three tablespoons of
Mazzarino, and for a little acidity to cut through all the richness, the juice
of two limes, stir it, let it cook for five more minutes to finish the
thickening process. And that's a Texas-style chili con. CARNEY The meatiest
chili in the world.
No, no, I said to not follow a
recipe and just eyeball it by. I will post a recipe on the basics with the
Babish website with more precise measurements. I just hope this is something
you experiment with and try to make it your own as you tweak it and see what
differences your tweaks make in the final product. And look at this. I am just
making a mess. Oh no. What to do? Do I just leave the counter like this like a
slob? No. I call on my best friend bounty paper towels. Perfect for cleaning up
spills and the rims of bowls for a little bit nicer presentation. Also
improving that presentation is a little bit of freshly grated pepper, jack
cheese, and a few lime wedges. But all the usual chili suspects are fair game.
Cornbread, sour cream, tortilla chips, avocado. I've even heard of people
putting olives on their chili. And as crazy as that sounds, that's the great
thing about chili. It doesn't belong to any one person or region or needs to
conform to anyone. Given recipe or technique to which it is now time to head to
the opposite end of the chili spectrum, the least meaty chili in the world,
vegetarian chili. But this is no tofu crumble knockoff. No, no. This is a chili
that is loudly and proudly all about the vegetables. As such, we want to layer
it with lots and lots of different vegetable flavors.
Starting first with vegetable
stock. So we're gonna borrow a technique from the folks over at chef's steps
and finally shave all of our vegetables using a mandolin. I have your onions, celery,
fresh fennel, parsnip, carrots, leek, cauliflower, and even a few beets. We
should add some nice color and earthy flavor. These are all getting shaved nice
and thinly on the mandolin and then getting placed in a large bowl where we can
toss them with a little bit of vegetable oil. Make sure that every piece is
evenly coated to get your oven preheated. Three hundred seventy-five degrees
Fahrenheit. Spread them out evenly on a couple of large rimmed baking sheets
and roast anywhere from 30 minutes to about an hour, depending on how deep and
dark you want your vegetable stock to be. Just make sure to take him out and
give him a little toss every 15 minutes or so to make sure that nobody burns.
Try not to let them overlap too much and take them out once they're nice and
brown and caramelized and smell like everything that makes vegetables great.
And now for the relatively simple task of making stock out of them, since they
are so thinly sliced, we're not going to have to do it for very long. About 45
minutes of simmering. We're also going to add a few springs of fresh time. A
small head of garlic sliced in half. Some fresh parsley, freshly rinsed.
A couple of dry bay leaves in a
couple of whole black peppercorns. Cover your flavorful Malone's with cold water
and bring to a simmer. Also, I'm going to add the first of several Amami
boosters, a handful of dried pork, sini mushrooms and a couple sheets of combo
both excellent and natural sources of glutamates that are going to pack a
savory wallop in our vegetable broth, which we're going to let simmer for 45
minutes to 1 hour, which should be enough time to extract all the flavor that
those thin little vegetables have to yield good and strain that because now
it's time to contend with some fresh chilies. In this case, three poblano
peppers and three good old fashioned Holle opinion is developing is a pretty
much just reheat with the poblano as are packed full of flavor, especially if
we fire roast them, which is exactly what we're going to do over a raging, fiery
stovetop. Make sure you've got the overhead bins set to maximum and your
windows open as you place the put blotto peppers directly over the flame. Our
goal here is to completely char the skin of these peppers to just let him sit
for as long as you can and then using metal tongs, flip them over and make sure
that every inch of the exterior is coated in char. Once they are sufficiently
blackened, it's time to remove them from the heat and wrap them up in aluminum
foil.
It's gonna let the pepper steam a
little bit so their flesh softens and their skin loosens. That sounds weird.
Gordon, wrap that up real tight and then set it aside for at least 10 minutes
or until the peppers are nice and soft out. That reminds me. Go ahead and throw
some gloves on because it's time to cut some Pollyannas and half scrape out the
seeds and ribs and finally chop it and set those aside because our poblano is
they're steamed and it's time to skin them. And what's the best way to do that?
Why? With paper towels, of course, they'll get a little bit more traction on
the pepper so you can remove the skin in one fell swoop. Once you've gotten rid
of most of the burnt stuff, I like to leave a little bit on there. I know it's
not very good for you, but what can I say? I love carbon isation simply chop
into bite-sized pieces and then it's time to start assembling our chili.
Starting first with the usual procedure of sweating too large chopped onions
and a little bit of olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium ie heat until
soft and translucent. And then we're crushing in the requisite garlic six or
seven cloves worth making a mess that we're gonna have to clean up later using
paper towels. So let's aim for about one minute until fragrant and then it's
time to start adding all the other stuff.
First up, our chopped peppers 2 3
tablespoons worth of tomato paste, letting those flavors get to know each other
briefly and then adding a few spices, namely a few big pinches, about two or
three teaspoons worth of toasted, freshly ground human, which has a nice
plurality that the jarred stuff just doesn't have them. We're also going to add
a little shake of ground, coriander seed and a few big shakes of dried oregano.
And now it's time to add the most controversial ingredient. That's right, beans.
Most people say beans do not have a place in chili, but especially in
vegetarian chili. I say otherwise. Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Cheese and crackers. I
forgot to put the stupid bowl down. Thank goodness for bounty. And it's double
absorbency and select sized technology that makes this stupidness a breeze to
clean up. Anyhoo, go ahead and drain three cans of beans. I'm going with Kidney
Castellini and Pento for a wide being variety. I'm also going to add one 14
ounce can each of crushed tomatoes and crushed by roasted tomatoes for a little
extra smoky flavor along with about 3 cups of our vegetable stock or enough to
make the chili a little bit water here than you'd like it to be, which will, of
course, be remedied during the ensuing summer. Last but not least, we are
adding our chili paste, which I've also blended a couple of those dried pork
Cheaney mushrooms in two.
Now it's time to let this guy
simmer for 45 minutes to an hour. Just enough time to let everybody get to know
each other without overcooking the beans. Then just before serving, it's time
for a couple of secret ingredients. First off, some liquid Amano's for another
Emami boost and several tablespoons worth of nutritional yeast flakes, which
will give it a nice, funky, cheesy parmesan like the bite. And with that, it's
time to serve up until this point. This chili has been made entirely vegan. So
if you want to stay vegan, just stop here. I am not vegan. Some of to go ahead
and there are some sour cream on here and maybe a few extra sliced. Kenya's for
a little color and flair. And there you have it. A vegetarian chili to end
all-vegetarian chilies. A strong independent chili that doesn't need any meat.
Speidi spicy, hearty, wholesome, rich, flavorful fulfilling not trying to
awkwardly fill some meat shaped hole in your heart, but instead forging a new
one in the shape of a chili. And with that, I want to thank Bouncy again for
sponsoring this episode and helping me quickly clean up my kitchen while I'm
shooting. I did link in the video description for more from Bansi and keep an
eye out during the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl to see which of these chili
recipes makes a special appearance.