Making Chilly "Tips" whats yours.

I have a few that helps me.

If you can’t use self canned tomatoes only use whole canned tomamatoes for more flavor. Trust me, you can take the extra time to quarter them.

Use chuck hamburger not to lean and not to greasy. Also when browning meat add spices at the end of browning to let the spices bloom for a while. Most important i feel.

Ad fresh peppers towards the end, I use serreno pepper, until aldenta chewy with a bit of snap.

Uses dried Chipotle peppers, not the canned stuff, you will get that smoked spicy flavor.

Add

I like to use a 3# blend of equal parts ground beef, pork, and venison.
Homemade fire roasted tomatoes or canned. I use several poblano peppers, white and red onion and like chili is meant to be it contains no beans. Served with some shredded cheese, a dollop of sour cream, and a sprinkle of fritos corn chips.

My differences from most recipes:

Chocolate
Beer
El Pato Sauce, yellow can
1 hour in the smoker

Beer.

Ground beef and chopped up steak.sometimes I like a little smoky flavored bbq sauce in it.

Still wondering about the chocolate. Can you elaborate Dave.

I too add chocolate to almost all my chili variations

Ripjiggen wrote:

Still wondering about the chocolate. Can you elaborate Dave.

This is what the internet says about the subject:

Adding chocolate to chili lends depth and richness to the spicy dish, making it both more savory and more satisfying.

JUST GOT DONE WITH A BATCH 1LB HAMBUGER, CUBED VENISON BACK STRAP AND THE OTHER NORMAL INGREDIENTS BUT I USE V8 HOT N SPICY

No mention of Bacon yet?

Add seasoning late, make your own chili powder or get good quality stuff.

burger, deer chunks bulk Italian sausage beer and a pinch of cinnamon

Gotta have Cumin in it.

Corn bread on the side, better yet corn bread with chilis in the batter.

If the tomato taste has to much bite add a small amount of sugar and stir it in. Repeat until flavor is right. It doesn’t take a lot.

I love adding in Andouille Smoked Sausage. Gives it a great flavor.

Try some Johnsonville “chorizo”.

Cubed chuck roast. Chiles in adobo. Corn tortilla puree.

Before you start mixing your chili ingredients in a pot, smoke the meat and diced peppers/onions for 2 hours. Smoke the beans for 45 minutes.
then mix and cook per recipe.

– just won the company chili cook off last week by doing this.

I like the additions of beer, chocolate, and smoking the entire pot, but they add some intense flavor if not done correctly and that can put many people off.

Use bacon fried to crispy and use bacon grease to cook the meat. If doing steak, especially venison steak, sear it as hot and fast as possible to get a good crust and leave the middle uncooked. Once you get your chili where you want it, add the steak to finish cooking along with the crispy bacon that will rehydrate slightly. Oh and you can’t use too many onions.

tornadochaser wrote:

Before you start mixing your chili ingredients in a pot, smoke the meat and diced peppers/onions for 2 hours. Smoke the beans for 45 minutes.
then mix and cook per recipe.

x2 The smoke flavor adds so much. Season the ground beef and pork for 24 hours before smoking. I don’t smoke the venison. Just sear it like BigWerm.

Rodwork wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tornadochaser wrote:</div>
Before you start mixing your chili ingredients in a pot, smoke the meat and diced peppers/onions for 2 hours. Smoke the beans for 45 minutes.
then mix and cook per recipe.

x2 The smoke flavor adds so much. Season the ground beef and pork for 24 hours before smoking. I don’t smoke the venison. Just sear it like BigWerm.

This is a variant of what I have been doing now, but I make the meat into a huge ball and put it above my cast iron pot on my kamado. Cook until the ball is roughly 140 then crumble it in the cast iron pot. This is what they call “Over the Top Chili”. I like to mix in Ground Chuck, Venison Burger and ground italian sausage. I usually use spicy italian sausage. Otherwise my ingredients are similar to what others do.

I like sweet with heat chili so I add brown suger and usually seranos. If it’s just me eating it, I will throw in something hotter.
The brown sugar and chili powder just make an awesome base for it.

All this talk about Chili now I have to make some this week.

Ancho Chili Powder instead of standard Chili Powder. Fantastic flavor, Warm tongue-hugging heat that’s not overpowering.

I definitely need to try the smoking thing, though.

I add jimmy dean and refried beans!

ThunderLund78 wrote:

Ancho Chili Powder instead of standard Chili Powder. Fantastic flavor, Warm tongue-hugging heat that’s not overpowering.

Very good tip on the Ancho! I use that in one of my wing sauces and it is a very nice flavor.