Bucket Chili Recipe No. 1

Hello again and welcome to another edition of Benny the Bucket, Cooking for my family. Today is the start of new series that will hopefully, in time, hone down the best chili recipe by me Benny. As you could probably deduct we will be making some chili this week. There are many attitudes and idea towards chili, eventually we will try to explore all those, but for today we are looking at inspiration from Ben's Chili Bowl (not going to be an exact match or style by any means).

Disclaimer: You might see me use specific brands in my recipes, this is in no way an endorsement of any brand whatsoever. Feel free to use the brands, farms and such you feel most comfortable with.

 Ingredients

2 lb of Ground Hamburger (85/15)
1 package of Super Thick Bacon
1/4 cup of Red Wine Vinegar
1 can (14.5oz) of Beef Broth
1 can of Chili Beans (Pinto)
1 can of Dark Red Kidney Beans
1 can (6oz) of Tomato Paste
Worcestershire
3 tbsp of Chili Powder
1 1/2 tbsp of Cayenne Pepper
1 tbsp of Ground Cumin Seed
1 tbsp of Roasted Paprika
1 tbsp of Turmeric
1 tbsp of Tarragon
1/2 tbsp of Curry Powder (Mild)
3 tbsp of Minced Garlic
1 medium Sweet Onion

The How To:

The first thing I did was place the hamburger into a bowl and lightly season it with salt and pepper and pouring  around a cup or so of Worcestershire on the meat. Then mix all of the meat, seasoning and Worcestershire together by hand, cover and place in the refrigerator for around an hour so.

Next, what we need to do is chop the onion, the best way I have discovered to dice/chop an onion is from this tutorial video: Knife Skills - How to Dice an Onion. Once the onion is diced up we want to combined the onion and minced garlic into a medium largish pot with a tablespoon or so of extra virgin olive oil.

Go ahead and cook the onion-garlic mixture on medium heat, stirring frequently for around 7 to 9 minutes or until the onion is transparent and soft. While the onion-garlic mixture is cooking we want to measure out the spices as listed above. Below is a picture of the spices, minus the 3 tablespoons of chili powder (which was added just not pictured).

Once the onions are finally finished cooking we want to combine all the spices and red wine vinegar into the pot, still on medium heat, stir the spice-onion mixture up for about 1 minute then add the the hamburger we had marinating in the Worcestershire and seasoning. Go ahead and cook the meat with the other ingredients for around 10-12 minutes on medium-high heat.

Once the hamburger has been cooking long enough to heat up sufficiently (kind of like browning, but probably can't tell that is has completely brown, which is okay because the chili is going to cook for awhile as you will see shortly). We now want to empty the can of beef broth into the chili along with 2 1/2 cans of water. Let the chili heat up to light bowl and then reduce heat to a simmer for one hour.

After the hour is up we want to empty our cans of beans into a colander and rinse them thoroughly. Once rinsed go ahead and add them into the chili and let the chili cook for an additional hour on a simmer. Now that  additional hour has passed we want to cook our super thick bacon (but do not over cook the bacon, we want the bacon to remain soft and finish fully cooking in the chili). Once the bacon is almost cooked we want to remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes and then chop the bacon into smaller pieces.

Go ahead an add the bacon into the chili. The chili may still be thin to your liking. It was for me, so I decided to take 1 tbsp of cornstarch and around 1/3 cup of cold water, mix this up in a glass with a spoon. Here is where I decided to do something a bit different, optional for you if you decide to make this chili, take the left over bacon grease (which is nicely collected on a griddle which I use to cook the bacon) and poor it into the cornstarch mixture.

Looks odd, I know... but the cornstarch mixture will help thicken the chili as it cooks down and who doesn't like bacon grease? Bring the chili up to a low boil and stir in the cornstarch-bacon grease mixture. Once fully mixed in, reduce heat to a simmer and let cook for another hour.

The chili should now be cooking down and getting thicker. If it still isn't the thickness you might like, go ahead and add some additional cornstarch mix (without the bacon grease) and let it cook down until it is to the thickness you desire.

Now we have reached the end of the cooking and it is time to have ourselves a bowl. I have learned from my wife how to garnish chili with crushed crackers and shredded cheddar cheese (have always used cheddar cheese in the past, I guess the only difference is the crushed saltine crackers).

Look delicious if you ask me!


Ratings and Opinions:


I personally give this chili recipe a fair 3 out of 5 stars.

Benny: I was very excited in making this chili recipe, in the future (as in recipe No. 2) I will be changing a few things around, stay reading for those updates as they come. Anyways, I found the flavor to very good though it was tad spicy which isn't necessarily bad. I would have preferred it to be a bit thicker but the crackers help with that. All in all it was a success in my opinion, just not overwhelming.

Wife: Really like it, had lots a flavor, delicious though a little too spicy for me. Yummy.

Mother-in-Law: Good but too spicy, I didn't like the cumin in the chili. Not much more I can say, I ate a bowl. Hot. Hot. Hot.

Father-in-Law: Very good, I do not know why others complained about the how spicy it was, it wasn't spicy at all. The bacon was a good addition.

Child 1: Very good, not that spicy either. Though I wish it had more beans to add to the chunkiness of the chili, finished a big hearty bowl of the chili.

Child 2: I did not like it all, too spicy. Did not finish more than a few bites.