By Somer
I’ve eaten chili all my life. My mom makes a mean chili and I’m always happy to eat some. Not until maybe 5 years ago did I become aware of the fact that there is a heated debate over whether or not a true chili contains beans.
I grew up eating chili with beans. I think that in the beginning of this style, the beans were used as a way to stretch the use of a single pound of meat. It was economical and it grew into an acquired taste. There are people who will smack the teeth right out of your face if you question their usage of beans.
I make chili without beans. It’s not that I don’t like chili with beans, I just honestly like it a little better without. I used to always make my chili with beans because it’s the kind that both my husband and I grew up eating. Then one night my husband was complaining incessantly (if you know my husband, you know that incessantly is the only way that he knows how to complain) that he wanted chili for dinner. I didn’t have beans on hand and you know how much I hate those small trips to the store. So I made him chili without the beans and I added a few new spices just for kicks. As it turned out, we were both stunned at how much we preferred this style over the previous style.
Chili (No Beans)
My Recipe
-1 lb. 80/20 ground beef
-2 15-oz. cans tomato sauce
-1 medium onion, diced
-3 cloves garlic, minced
-1/3 cup brown sugar
-1 tsp. salt
-1/2 tsp. black pepper
-1/4 cup chili powder
-1 tsp. cumin
-1/4 tsp. coriander
-1 tsp. dried oregano
-1 tsp. dried parsley flakes
-1/2 tsp. cinnamon
-1/8 tsp. ground cloves
-5 good shakes of Tabasco Sauce
-1/4 tsp. Cayenne pepper
Brown the ground beef in a skillet. Don’t drain. Chili, somehow, is better greasy. Trust me.
Heat a dutch oven over medium heat. Heat 1 Tblsp. olive oil in the dutch oven. Add onions and cook until translucent. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds.
Add the two cans of tomato sauce. Stir. Add ground meat and juices. Stir.
Add brown sugar and stir well. Then add the rest of the ingredients. Stir and let heat through. Once the mixture is heated, give the chili a taste and adjust the seasonings to your taste. Once the seasonings satisfy you, lower the heat and cover. Cook for 30 minutes.
I like to serve this with homemade cornbread. Sprinkle some shredded cheese and minced white onion over the chili. YIELD: 4 large servings.
I know that a few of those spices seem a little out of place in a chili, but trust me when I say that it adds a new level of spice to the mixture. Sometimes I like to add some chopped bell peppers of banana peppers to this as a little extra.
If you insist on beans, add two cans of drained chili beans and omit the cinnamon, cloves, and coriander. They don’t have the same magic with beans.
I think the only chili that could possibly ever really offend me is a runny chili. I like a thick and hearty chili. Runny chili is just, well, disgusting. So work on that, you runny chili people! Otherwise, cook on! Chili is great in cold and hot weather and is a great dish to make for company since most people love it.
Enjoy!
By Somer
The first two years that I had the darned thing, I had no idea how to use it. Back then, my pizzas came to me in a cardboard box via a pimply-faced teenager. It sat in my cabinet unused, taking up space. I considered many times giving it away. I had no use for it. Boy am I glad that I never acted on that completely stupid impulse.
My pizza stone is my very dear friend. First of all, I like to use it to make pizza. On homemade pizza, I prefer a thin and crispy crust and a pizza stone is really the only way to achieve that in a standard oven.
But as time wore on and my cooking diversified (compared to what it used to be) I found another really awesome use for my pizza stone. I can use it to make Naan!
In case you are unaware, Naan is a leavened Indian flat bread. It’s usually made in a tandoor oven, but since most American kitchens do not have a tandoor, I discovered that my pizza stone can help me achieve the crazy hot surface that I needed to make a perfect Naan.
I put the pizza stone into a cold oven, and then crank the heat to the max. I let the pizza stone sit in the maximum heat of my oven for 30 minutes before putting the Naan dough on the stone. (WARNING: This thing is insanely HOT! Use every precaution when doing this. It only takes a microsecond of contact for you to get a very nasty burn…trust me…I know.)
Once the Naan is on the pizza stone, I turn the broiler on high so that the top of the bread will cook. It only takes about 3 minutes for the bread to cook fully in this fashion.
Once the Naan is through cooking, I like to finish it by basting a small amount of vegetable oil over the top, sprinkling with some finely minced garlic, and sprinkling with some chopped fresh cilantro.
I love Naan and make it every time I make an Indian dish for dinner. I use the recipe from the Indian cookbook that I’ve linked to probably a thousand times.
There are many wonderful recipes for Naan out there and I suggest you try it out. Pizza stones are readily available here, here, here, and here. Take your pick. Just don’t underestimate the power or a porous stone that you can heat to a bajillion degrees. I’m sure I’ll find many more uses for this thing in the years to come.
Also, remember that these tools don’t mix well with soap. Just wipe them down if you can.
Go and get one! Start making your own pizza crusts with whole grain flour! Make some Naan! French fries work well on this baby too!
Enjoy!
By Somer
I had made a leg of lamb for dinner a few days back and, of course, there was quite a bit of leftover meat. When you prefer your lamb to be medium rare, you can only reheat it so many times before it turns into something tasting like burnt rubber. I considered my options for what to do with the leftover meat and finally came to the conclusion that some sort of Somer-ized Indian lamb meatball dish was in order.
I hadn’t done anything fancy with my leg of lamb. I prefer a flavorful meat such as lamb (when in huge meat-chunk form) to be prepared simply. I cut small slits into the meat and stuffed the slits with garlic and fresh rosemary. I then simply roasted the lamb until it was a beautiful medium rare. I think that with this simple preparation, I was able to make the meat into something completely different.
The first thing that I did was chop the lamb meat into a ground meat-like consistency. I ended up with about 1 lb. of ground lamb. My other food processor didn’t survive the move from Washington to Pennsylvania so Santa brought me a new one for Christmas. This thing is a bit nicer than my deceased Black and Decker one, but oh my goodness it chopped that lamb meat like it was making bread crumbs! And it is quiet!
Once the meat was ground, I put it into a bowl, added two eggs, 1 minced onion, 3 cloves of minced garlic, 1/2 tsp. cumin, 1/2 tsp. coriander, 1/4 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper, and 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper. I decided against adding a filler to these meatballs like breadcrumbs in order to preserve the flavor. The meatballs were a little crumbly because of this omission, but with a little care I was able to preserve their shape.
I fried the meatballs in a dutch oven in vegetable oil much the same way that I would fry up regular meatballs. Again, take care when flipping because these meatballs are much more delicate and crumbly. And, as with regular meatballs, do not overcrowd the pan to ensure even browning of the meat without boiling it. It takes 2-3 batches to do all of the meatballs, just set them aside on a plate as they finish browning.
As for the sauce in which these meatballs were to swim, I turned to my beloved Indian cookbook and thumbed through it considering my options. My eye was caught by a Rogan Josh recipe for lamb. Lamb Rogan Josh is one of those milder Indian dishes that most Americans should be familiar with at this point. I have yet to find an Indian restaurant that doesn’t serve Lamb Rogan Josh and really, it IS a lovely dish even if it is not terribly adventurous. Taking my cues from the recipe from my culinary tome, I concocted a sauce that was thick, tangy, and spicy. It’s a very fast moving process a.k.a. stir-fry style in which the cooking is very hot and very fast so you will want to have everything already chopped and set out before you start the sauce so that it will be a smooth process.
Rogan Josh-ish Sauce
My Recipe (with the help of my cookbook)
-2 Tblsp. freshly grated ginger root
-6 to 8 cloves of garlic
-1 to 1-1/2 cups water
-2 tsp. ground cardamom (the original recipe called for cardamom pods which are hard to find in stores but easy to find online)
-2 bay leaves
-6 cloves
-10 peppercorns (of you don’t have whole peppercorns, don’t try to substitute ground pepper, just leave it out)
-1 small cinnamon stick
-1 large onion finely chopped
-1 tsp. ground coriander
-2 tsp. ground cumin
- 4 tsp. Spanish paprika (it has a great color and a nice flavor)
- Cayenne pepper (depending on how hot you want this dish, you can add between 1/8 to 1 tsp.)
-6 Tblsp. plain yogurt
Make a thick paste of the ginger and garlic by putting them into a small blender or food processor and then adding just enough water. I only needed 2 Tblsp.
Heat 1/4 cup of vegetable oil in the same pot where you browned your lamb meatballs. When the oil is nuclear hot, add the cardamom, bay leaves, cloves, peppercorns, and cinnamon. Stir quickly and when the smell of the deep perfumes of these spices becomes strong and the bay leaves start to color, add the onions. Stir until the onions start to take on a light caramel color. Add the ginger garlic paste and stir for about 30 seconds. Add the rest of the spices and stir for another 30 seconds.
Now add the yogurt 1 Tblsp. at a time, stirring and incorporating completely before adding the next tablespoon.
Add the water and stir. When the water is hot, gently add the meatballs to the sauce. Turn the heat to low, cover, and cook for 30-45 minutes. Because you are cooking meatballs instead of meat chunks, it doesn’t need to cook quite as long.
If, at the end of this time, the liquid is still very thin, turn the heat to medium and uncover the dish and let some of the liquid evaporate. Keep an eye on it, though and don’t let it burn.
I like to serve saucy dishes like this with some rice. Obviously, the preferred rice is Basmati rice, but I didn’t have any on hand at the time, so I used the regular (and cheap) long grain rice and added some bay leaves, cloves, and cardamom to the water. You get a flavorful rice that is totally worthy of this dish.
When we have Indian dishes like this, I like to serve them in their own small bowls. The main dish in it’s own small bowl, and the rice in it’s own small bowl. I then make Naan, and we eat with our fingers. It helps with the whole experience of eating an ethnic food that is otherwise completely foreign to us. I think it’s a neat way to pay homage to the dish.
This was a great dish and a brilliant way to use some leftover lamb meat. I have to say, I’m pleased with myself. I hope you try this and like it as much as we did. Enjoy!
I am Somer Canon: Shiftless lay-about, blog enthusiast, and more importantly, food lover. This blog will share my favorite recipes, cooking techniques, adventures in eating, and just about any subject pertaining to cooking and eating.