Posts Tagged ‘Cooking The Books’

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Summertime is chili time: Cook’s Illustrated Beef Chili with Bacon and Black Beans


2010
06.23

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Posted in Recipes | 1 Comment »

Some will argue that winter is the best time for chili, and as someone who formerly lived in the Great White North, I would certainly agree that chili is delicious as a bone-warming wintertime meal.

That being said, chili is effin’ wicked in the summertime, too. As some Old Wives will tell ya, eating or drinking hot stuff actually cools you off. Dunno if I necessarily believe in this concept, but it sure is nice to stuff your gob with spicy deliciousness and then drink down a gallon or two of water. Pair it up with an ice-cold beer and some might even say you’ve got a little slice of heaven there, pardner.

As any good Texan knows, there are many different kinds of chili, not the least of which is “Texas style” chili—i.e. the no-bean variety that uses chuck roast rather than ground beef for the meat. Having done some time in Cincinnati, I’ve also come to appreciate the joys of a good Cincinnati chili, complete with cocoa powder and cinnamon, thin “gravy” style sauce, and fixin’s 2 (spaghetti + chili), 3 (add cheddar cheese), 4 (add diced onions or beans) or 5-ways (add diced onions and beans). And perhaps it’s the New Yorker buried deep down inside that says you’d better serve that chili on a Coney Island hot dog or it’s not worth bothering with.

As you can see, I love me some chili, in all its glorious incarnations.

The recipe I currently use, however, comes from Cook’s Illustrated and maximizes the spices combined to form this chili in the least amount of time possible, though it grows more tasty over time. I submit to you that this is actually The World’s Finest Chili recipe, in that it is infinitely customizable. Ingredients are kept basic, but fixin’s can range from a simple sprig of cilantro to the kitchen sink version of the dish, including everything from fresh tomatoes, diced avocado, sliced scallions, chopped red onion, sour cream, shredded cheese, up to extra shots of Tabasco or your preferred hot sauce. Yum!

Now, at this point in the game, I would typically type up a copy of the recipe for you to put to the test, but since it’s from Cook’s Illustrated and they absolutely deserve the credit from anyone who should find it here—not to mention the fact that I firmly believe that stealing someone’s intellectual property is the King of No-No’s and will earn you a one-way ticket to Bad Ju-Ju City—I must regretfully omit the specifics on this page.

However, if you want to check out the original recipe, which goes under the name “Beef Chili with Bacon and Black Beans,” I highly encourage you to sign up for a free trial membership at the Cook’s Illustrated website to get the straight dope right from the horse’s mouth. It’s a 14-day free trial of all the recipes on the site, and it’s really worth it if you like to cook. I realize this sounds like some kind of sneaky way for me to get you sign you up for the Cook’s Illustrated website with a concealed profit from said sign-up cha-ching!-ing somewhere for me, but I can assure you that this benefits me in no way. Heck, they don’t even have an affiliate program, which sucks cus, frankly, I would LOVE to be an affiliate of theirs!

Anyway, my point is that I admire the way they are all about maximizing the awesome factor of classic American recipes by making them tasty, foolproof, standardized and far less time consuming than their dusty, crusty ancestors. To be fair, yes, I am all about Cook’s Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen, where their recipes are tasted, tested and released into the wild, but there’s absolutely nothing in it for me.

Unless, of course, you count delicious chili like this:

Cook's Illustrated Beef Chili with Bacon and Black Beans recipe burbling on the stove

Seriously, make some tonight and tell me you didn’t fall in love!

Oh, and here are the ingredients, in case you’d like to play detective on your own to figure out the golden copyrighted ratio:

  • bacon
  • onions (preferably red, but that’s my opinion, not theirs)
  • red bell pepper
  • garlic
  • chili powder
  • ground cumin
  • ground coriander
  • red pepper flakes
  • dried oregano
  • cayenne pepper
  • ground beef
  • black beans
  • diced tomatoes
  • tomato puree
  • salt

It may not quite be elementary, Watson, but it’s darn close.

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Cooking the Books: The Frugal Gourmet Cooks With Wine


2009
12.27

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Posted in Recipes | 1 Comment »

I’m not entirely sure where I picked up my copy of The Frugal Gourmet Cooks With Wine, but it was probably in a bin of unwanted items that had been donated to the Concordia Co-op Bookstore, before I moved to Austin. (Check the local Half-Price Bookstores here in Austin, if you’re looking to score, as they might just have a copy.) At any rate, this pocket-sized cookbook contains 425 pages of recipes made with wine, as well as information on how to choose wines to drink or stock your cellar, and it was totally worth the 50 cents I paid for it (according to the pencil marking on the inside front cover).

I grew up watching Jeff Smith’s Frugal Gourmet program on PBS, so I knew from previous exposure that the book was going to be a good bet, but I never realized how truly awesome some of the dishes really are until I actually started cooking them at home. After all, anything can look great on TV when a professional is doing the cooking, but how will those same dishes stand up to the test in a not-so-tricked-out home kitchen?

As a home cook, I’m a big fan of recipes that involve minimal specialty ingredients, as well as anything that will have multiple servings I can freeze and reheat in the future. The recipe below for Chicken and Chickpea Stew from the “Spain” section fulfills both of my requirements, and as an added bonus it can be made on a weeknight if you make some of our quick ‘n’ easy substitutions. Check this out:

Shoestring Austin’s Simplified Chicken & Chickpea Stew
(based on a recipe from The Frugal Gourmet Cooks With Wine)

Ingredients:

  • 2 cans chickpeas, drained
  • 3 T. olive oil
  • all the meat from a store-bought rotisserie chicken, torn up into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 slice whole wheat bread
  • 1 large yellow onion, peeled and sliced
  • 2 large ripe tomatoes, diced
  • 1 slice bacon
  • 2 c. chicken stock (preferably from a can or carton, rather than made from the bouillion cubes)
  • 1 bay leaf
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 2 eggs, hard-boiled and peeled
  • 1/2 c. dry sherry

Directions:

  1. Heat a large frying pan and add the oil. Brown the chicken pieces on all sides and remove from the pan.
  2. Fry the slice of bread in the remaining oil. Remove it and set aside.
  3. In the same pan, sauté the onion, tomatoes and bacon. Cook until the onions are clear.
  4. Place these veggies into a big (6-quart) lidded Dutch oven, and add the chicken pieces and chickpeas.
  5. Deglaze the frying pan with a bit of the broth (i.e. pour in some of the broth and scrape any browned bits off the bottom of the pan). Add the pan drippings and all the stock to the pot, along with bay leaf, salt and pepper.
  6. Cover and bring to a simmer. Simmer until the chicken is tender. (The original recipe required about 45 minutes, since you only browned the otherwise uncooked chicken, but since you’ve just browned pre-cooked chicken, this shouldn’t take as long; probably 10-15 minutes).
  7. In the meantime, crush the garlic into a small bowl. Break up the fried bread and add to the garlic, along with the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs. Mash the mixture with 1 T. of the sherry, creating a garlic/egg yolk paste.
  8. Chop the white of the eggs.
  9. When the chicken has been simmering for 10-15 minutes, add the garlic paste, chopped egg whites, and remaining sherry.
  10. Stir the pot carefully and simmer for another 10 minutes and you’re done!

The Frugal Gourmet recommends enjoying this dish with a light red Rioja wine on the side, which sounds great to me. I’ve made this dish the “long” way, with a full chicken, and even that doesn’t really take too much prep time. You just have to keep an eye on the simmering pot and stir it every once in a while, since it’s on the stove for 45 minutes. If you’ve got the extra time, I’d definitely give it a try that way to see how you like it, but our weeknight version with the pre-cooked chicken will shave off quite a bit of cooking time, getting your meal on the table faster, and will still give you a lot of the original recipe’s great chicken stew flavors. This is a great wintertime dish to warm you up, and if you like you can serve it over rice as well. Enjoy!