fifi

I second the notion to use a turkey frier burner. It works great. I am thinking about building in a couple at the house outdoors for frying fish, turkeys and boiling shrimp. I had forgotten about the time I used it, because it was still set up, to do a turkey stir fry with Thanksgiving leftovers.

I agree on the longer slower cooking. My family likes the melting tender version of pork. The only exception is the lean roasts like loin or tenderloin that I do to 140F internal temp. Pork belly confit? Fried? I smell another pork thread. I'm having a hard time visualizing that. ← No pork fridge in the apartment. But I'm working on it. I am having trouble visualizing the cuts as well. On the shank portion, the only bone protruding is the end of the shank. The other end is a cut face so I don't think you would have to do anything to get the salt in there. That is partly what prompted me to ask about the skin. The cuts at the bone seem to be there to "let the salt in" or something like that. The skin might also block salt diffusion. Details. Details. Details.

Now I know what I am doing for Thanksgiving. When Varmint proclaims something "pork crack" I sit up and take notice. Now come the inevitable questions. Does this have to be done with the whole ham? I have a couple of recipes with fresh ham and I have been going to my Asian market to get these beautiful shank portion hams. They run about 10 to 12 pounds. That would be more manageable for the number of mouths that I am likely to feed and my fridge space. Can we assume that you are using kosher salt or is pickling salt more the norm? Does it matter? Is the ham corned with the skin on? If so, do you score the skin before cooking? Skin it before cooking? I am sure I will think of more as I go along.

Count me interested. Here is their web site. Where do you buy this stuff?

Beans should be pre-cooked. If you have tomato product in the chili, or anything else acidic for that matter, your beans won't cook up right. Then you get into the situation where you don't know how much liquid you would need to cook the beans. My true confession is that, if I am using beans like in Whacked-Out Chili, I use a good brand of canned. Goya seems to do a good job of cooking beans without them getting mushy.

Boy can I relate to this guy. I fell into a similar trap here in braising with clay pots.

I think you are correct. After all, I do have that well seasoned steel wok in storage. And, I think I can get a burner grate for the new stove that is built to hold a wok. On the previous stove with standard (read . . . wimpy) burners, I couldn't properly stir fry more than enough for a light dinner for two. And that was dicey at best.

Ah ha! Perhaps the thickness of the core is a key issue with overhang. I do know that the thermal conductivity of whatever the pan is made of is a deal breaker. My big Calphalon pan is the old original type. That was made of spun cast high purity aluminum. He higher purity aluminum has about 30% better thermal conductivity than most aluminum alloys (confirmed by metallurgist and heat transfer friends). Even with considerable overhang on lousy electric burners, sauces bubble evenly across the surface of the pan and it browns evenly from edge to edge.

Somehow I ended up with a really big fry pan (not a saute) that is about 13 inches in diameter. It is Calphalon and it distributes the heat well enough that the "overhang" isn't a problem. I didn't buy it on purpose and probably wouldn't have. (I think it was a freeby.) Now I use it all the time for browning pieces of meat so I can do it all at once. It is a pain to clean in this stupid double sink, though.

I used to stir fry a lot. You are right about a wok as a useful pan. The problem I have now is that this lousy electric range just can't hack it. We started cooking with a wok about 30 years ago before it was cool. My dad had found some of the plain steel pans at some restaurant supply place and dragged one home. It took a while to figure out what to do with it. Then my mother tried an electric one, then some kind of cast iron thing. We went back to the plain steel. That is what my dad gave me when I got married. Still have it as a matter of fact and it is very well seasoned. When my son was living with me (and I had a gas range) stir frying was a go-to quick meal when we got home from work. I can't say we used recipes much at all but it was always good. I am wondering if one of these would serve well. I am thinking that the copper might give me an edge with the heat transfer. My new kitchen will have 17,000 BTU burners. I can't wait to get my wok out of storage.

It sounds like you have this chili thing down to a fine science. Someone above mentioned mixing cubed and ground beef. My dad experimented with that using the basic Pedernales River recipe. He was able to blend the best of both worlds. Then he started sneaking in some of the ground turkey in his endless quest to find a use for it. That worked pretty well, too actually. I have been a long term fan of Chile Pepper Magazine. If you go back and look at some of the chili cook-off award winners, they seem to have a common element of adding beef bullion as cubes or other sorts. I have to admit that I have never tried it but I do find the commonality curious.

Actually, duck fat is a vile substance and will probably harden in your arteries immediately. You should ship it all to me so that I can dispose of it in an approved toxic waste landfill. (OOPS! I think Mayhaw Man tried that on another thread.)

Heh heh . . . I love a good controversy. Let me say this . . . You can add hot stock to hot roux . . . but why? It is so much more work to get it to blend. I guess I am just too lazy to work that hard. I made that "mistake" with gumbo . . . once. The texture came out the same but it sure took a lot of work to make it look like something other than dog barf.

Great topic . . . To add more to the chile pepper theme, I find that adding chocolate to chili causes the mix of flavors to kind of "round out" . . . or something. You don't taste chocolate but it does make a difference. For my various bean salsas the addition of a couple of tablespoons of cider vinegar makes a big difference. Again, you don't really taste it but it brightens and blends the flavors . . . sort of. The first time I made one of these for my dad years ago, he tasted it and said "It needs something." That is when he grabbed the cider vinegar and poured in about two tablespoons to a big bowl full. He was right! For some stupid reason, cider vinegar is the only one that works like that.

OK . . . The beef in butter got me. I have got to try that. That beef looks like what we call chuck or shoulder. I am really intrigued with the concept of butter and beef. I can see why the minimalist approach with the spices makes sense. I spent a bit of time in The Hague and Amsterdam the past three years and I never had anything like that. I kept looking for traditional dutch dishes and never found them in restaurants. Either I missed something or such a restaurant doesn't exist. I would ask around for recommendations for a cookbook on traditional Dutch cuisine and that always got a laugh. (I wanted to bring that back as a gift for my sister.) Why is that? The pastry pictures have me drooling and I don't like sweets. The fries with mayo made a convert of me. I have just about given up ketchup. What really amazed me was the number of "Tex-Mex" places. They were particularly popular in Scheveningen. (I still can't pronounce it.) I had some wonderful "enchiladas" at one place. No, they weren't as spicy as I am used to and the cheese was probably Gouda. But they were lovely in their own way. I really did enjoy the more restrained use of spices. Keep going Chufi!!!

What is in the stores as "chili powder" is usually a combo of some sort of powdered chile, usually ancho, garlic and cumin. Some even bulk the stuff up with salt. If you have your own pure powder or puree, you have more control over your seasoning. Here is some science . . . If you use tomatoes in your chili that is an acid. As we discussed in the Dried Bean thread, acid stops the cooking of the beans. Usually, beans are added to chili as cooked beans. The acid effect is really to your advantage in that the beans won't get any mushier. IMHO, if you are going to put beans in your chili, they shouldn't be mushy. I know exactly what you are talking about. But I haven't a clue as to why that should be so. Maybe it is because with ground meat, you may have the same ratio of collagen-->gelatin but it isn't hooked up with the muscle fiber in the same way. That is my wild guess. I will have to say that I do make chili with ground meat because cubing is a bit of a pain. When I just want a quick bowl of red, I head for the ground chuck. My dad kept experimenting with ground turkey, trying to make something edible out of it, and came up with some good stuff. Now I will go back to spinning in my own strange, red universe.

I will give you a lawyer's answer. It depends. For the most part, I tend to cube at about 1/2 inch. I may go a bit larger for the Whacked Out Chili. That is because the beans, celery and red pepper pieces are a bit bigger. For the Pedernales River Chili, I tend to go with what dad did and head for 1/4 inch. Dad found that the texture was different by cubing rather than going for a coarse grind. I have to say that he was right. That is not to say that I have not taken the easy way out and used ground meat. It is all good. It is just a matter of what texture you prefer. Remember, the classic came from well pounded meat so it shouldn't be chunky like a stew. However, I have done that too and it was a chili like stew which was very good. I guess this is a bit like gumbo. There are many different ways to skin a cat (not to say that cats make their way into my chili, though I can't vouch for some of my friends ), and they are all good.

Daniel . . . I have to agree. Cubed beef adds an admirable texture to chili and it is my preferred way to go. I do the same thing if I am adding pork. While my dad did various riffs on the basic Pedernales River Chili, one thing he did settle on was the cubed beef rather than ground. He would put whatever meat he was using (beef chuck, pork shoulder) in the freezer to get icy and start chopping away until he had basically 1/2 inch cubes. He had progressed from your generic ground beef to a coarse chili grind, done for him by the butcher, to the cubing process. Yes, cubing is a PITA but I think it is worth it. I have just about all of the Bayless books. I am going to have to try one of the recipes. Just about everything else I have tried out of them has been spot on.

OMG . . . The Windex fish had me laughing out loud. I was not a particularly picky eater as a child but I did have my moments . . . raw tomato (long story, still can't stand them), oysters and TURNIPS! My family members usually had a garden somewhere and most of them grew turnips and were great turnip eaters. Even as late as my late teens (college student) my mother would try to disguise some sort of turnip dish under gobs of butter or whatever. I could smell a turnip a mile away. She finally gave up when, at age 25, she served turnips with the lilting promise that these turnips were just out of the garden and "sweet as sugar." My reply was . . . "They taste like sweet turnips!" Then, years later, I got tricked. I was at a business friend's house out in the country in Delaware. It was an impromtu dinner invitation. His wife decided to make a simple beef stew. After playing in the woods with the dogs, I thought I should offer to help in the kitchen. I go in and get the job of peeling some potatoes while she is peeling . . . TURNIPS! Oh dear. I had resigned myself to choking down a polite quantity of the stew. I took a small portion, making the excuse that I am a small eater in the evening. (True.) WELL . . . That was the most delicious stew I have ever eaten in my life. I went back for thirds. I still remember it to this day. The turnips added some warmth in the tummy and a delicious back note that I have never been able to duplicate. Maybe it was the good company, the cozy traditional dining room with the candlelight, the cold night. I don't know. But, later that night I looked up to heaven and told my mom, grandma and great aunt that I had finally, gladly, gleefully, eaten turnips.

OH MY . . . Yes! I have always thought of the Barbeque Posole as a sort of chili. I have made that basic recipe with only one can of hominy and added ancho paste. It was more like chili than a posole. I have also made it without the hominy altogether and with the ancho paste and it was chili. Boy, does smoky pork make for a bowl from heaven. I do like the green chilies in it though, and the oregano. BTW . . . Anchos are my favorite for the basic chile pepper for chili. Then I add others of my choice or what seems to be a good idea at the time. I have had a hard time finding the pure chile powders in my local stores, even the Latin American places like Fiesta Mart. I can find the dried chiles pretty reliably so I have taken to making big batches of chile paste and storing them in the freezer in half cup amounts. All you have to do is take the stems off and the seed out. Then you soak them in hot water until soft and run them in the blender. If you need liquid to get them to blend, I use chicken broth. You have to be careful about using the soaking liquid as it can get bitter. A purist would toast the dried peppers on a griddle or comal before soaking. I usually don't bother. If I ever get a larger capacity spice grinder, I will probably make my own powders. If you do that, toasting them makes for easier grinding as it dries them out more. But you do have to be careful not to burn them. The bitter thing raises its head again. If you can take the time to stock your "pantry" with chiles of your choice (paste or ground) you can have a lot of fun blending your chiles to your own taste. Having that in your pantry makes a pot of chili a quick meal instead of a project.

I am glad this thread came back up. I have a funny story. The HEB's in my area continue to add more CM products. There is a smaller one in Clear Lake City on El Camino and the big one at 646 and I-45. The smaller one is in an old Albertsons and they had been schlepping along with the existing store furniture. Then they decided to do a complete revamp, new shelving, reorganization, the whole nine yards. The funny part of this massive undertaking (well, probably not funny to them) was that they started the process right before the pre-Rita bug-out rush. I stopped in to get some supplies for the country place and the store was complete chaos. They actually had to put folks at the end of the aisles to help direct folks. . . "Where is the canned milk?" "What happened to the chips?" You get the picture. I am sure that the original plan was to start the shake up on a normally slow day. I gave my sympathies to the manager. All I got out of him was a heavy sigh. Anyway, it looks like there is a plan afoot to upgrade and include more CM products at the smaller HEBs as well. If that is so, I applaud the effort. Must . . . get . . . blood . . . orange . . . soda!

I have been told that Whacked-Out Chili is a sort of Cincinnati Chili but I am not sure of that. I have seen some recipes called that and they have a similarly outrageous list of ingredients. But I really don't know if that is what makes Cincinnati Chili. If anyone knows, please tell.

Your wish is my command . . . Whacked-Out Chili

I didn't read the whole page I linked to but one of the "Gee-I-didn't-know-that" moments from Robb Walsh's The Tex-Mex Cookbook was the fact that cumin became a standard ingredient after Mexico brought in folks from the Canary Islands to help settle the sparsely populated land that is now Texas and they brought cumin with them. The cumin was so good that it stayed.

Whacked-Out Chili Serves 8 as Main Dish. This recipe evolved from one I found in Southern Living several years ago. The original title was "Bodacious Chili." It was so weird that I had to try it. Being from Texas and a congenitally chili purist, my kids started calling it "that whacked-out chili you make" and the name stuck. This version has been pretty stable for some time now. But, I do have to admit that I mess with the spice mix from time to time. This is a really pretty dish and goes well with cornbread. Check out one of our great cook-offs . . . Chili--Cook-Off XV, eGullet Recipe Cook-Off Series 2 lb chuck in ½” cubes 2 large onions chopped 3 stalks celery cut in 1” pieces 1 large red bell pepper chopped 6 jalapenos, seeded and diced 2 c sliced mushrooms (Portobellos are really good) 8 cloves garlic minced 3 T olive oil Seasonings 3 T cocoa 4 T ancho chili powder 1 tsp cayenne or arbol (optional) 1 T cumin seeds 1 T dried Mexican oregano 1 T paprika 1 tsp ground tumeric 1/2 tsp salt or more to taste 1 tsp ground cardamom 1 tsp ground pepper 1 T molasses 1 c red wine 2 cans chopped tomatoes 1 can drained kidney beans 1 can drained garbanzos Start the meat in oil and when beginning to brown add the vegetables. Continue to cook on medium high until vegetables begin to cook. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Simmer covered for 1 ½ hours. Serve with cornbread or tortillas. Big corn chips and buttered saltines work well also. Our favorite topping is sour cream. Other toppings could include cheese, diced onion, shredded cabbage, pickled peppers, the list goes on and on. Keywords: Beef, Main Dish, Intermediate, Lunch, Dinner, Tex-Mex ( RG1442 )