Beef and cocoa

[Angakuk]

Chili Verde is my father's default order at any Mexican restaurant. If it is not on the menu he is not ever going back there.

When I was growing up we used to go to a little hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant that my dad claimed had the best Chili Verde ever. One night he ordered his usual and the rest of got served while he was still waiting for his order. When the waitress was asked what was taking so long, she finally answered, after considerable hemming and hawing, that they were out of the Chili Verde and the cook had gone home already. They called him to come back in right away and fix up a batch, but he got stuck in traffic at the Tiajuana border crossing.

[Dingfod]

Now THAT'S authentic Mexican food.

[irukandji]

Originally Posted by Demimonde

Even here, in the Land of Chili, I would say 90% is made with ground beef. I confess I make it that way sometimes when I am lazy.

Fierce fights can break out amongst Texans over the question to bean or not to bean. Both camps are firmly entrenched. I am devoutly anti-bean in regards to chili, though I love bean dishes and I do think it is overall in the spirit of the economy of the dish. For years I would refuse to even call it "chili" if there were beans in it. It drove my BFF crazy.

The world is against me though so I finally gave in. Add beans, use ground beef, whatever, it is chili.

I still reserve the original term for the real McCoy. Cubed cuts of cheap meat, peppers, heavily seasoned and cooked to tender oblivion is authentic chili con carne in my book.

ANOTHER (escaped) TEXAN AGREES! (born in Austin, reared in San Antonio)

up here on the south shore of the upper lake where surf and turf means smelt and bear, they call a tomato and ground beef concoction with chili powder AND BEANS "chili"... I just call it beefy tomato stew.. pointing out that where real chili is concerned, beans are a side dish.... not to say the BTS isn't tasty, it simply is not, in any dimension, chili

[Dingfod]

Well, Dingfod's Quick 'n' Easy Skillet Chili™ is basically what you describe as beefy tomato stew. It's still good to eat.

[slimshady2357]

I love chili

I've had home made chili, chili from a can, chili in a all kind of restaurants, chili in all of the above in both Canada and the UK and I have never, ever, not even once had chili that didn't have kidney beans in it.

They are 100% an essential ingredient.

[Adam]

For reals. Except for the eponymous ingredient, the beans, any beans, are the best part of the chili!

[Dingfod]

For the record, my chili verde does not now nor never has contained that vile soapweed called cilantro, AKA coriander. My daughter, the Mexican one, makes it with and it is foul indeed, barely edible. Way to ruin two pounds of perfectly good pork, dumbass.

[ceptimus]

I always add a can of red kidney beans to my chilli. It has to be a can though - the fresh beans don't have the same flavour. I also prefer canned chopped tomatoes, though fresh ones will do if no cans are to hand.

I put onions, tomatoes, red peppers and minced beef (definitely not pork) in mine. For herbs and spices I add garlic, cumin, papikra, marjoram and some 'curry powder' (whatever that is). Depending on how it tastes, I'll add a stock cube, and a dollop of red ketchup to the mix. I don't add sugar, but I suppose the ketchup is mainly sugar anyway.

Serve with plain boiled rice and sour cream.

[erimir]

I'm not from Texas, so I don't really care about whether chili should have beans or tomatoes in it or not. There's like a set of ingredients that can be in chili and still call it chili.

Chili is just one of those things that doesn't have a precise definition. Prototype theory (semantics) explains it well. The prototypical chili for most Americans I imagine is something like ground beef, beans, tomato puree and chili pepper, seasoned with cumin, garlic and onions (and probably other seasonings which are less important).

Quibbles about whether that's a proper chili aside, if you were somewhere in the US, but you didn't know where, and you went into a random restaurant (not one that specializes in authentic Southwestern or Mexican cuisine) and ordered chili, that's approximately what you'd expect to get. And if you're not from Texas or New Mexico or whatever, that's what you think of when you think about "chili". Obviously it can be modified from there, since vegetarian chili, white chili, green chili, non-spicy chili, etc. are also recognized as chili.

All I care about is if it tastes good.

Now, I can understand the purism in some sense. I see plenty of things called Swedish meatballs which are definitely not Swedish meatballs (if your meatballs don't contain allspice and a generous amount of onions, they don't taste particularly Swedish to me). Then again, this is partly because there's already a perfectly good term for what those are: just plain, bland meatballs with no need of a modifier. In the case of chili, perhaps you could try to popularize some good term for what those non-chili chilis are? "Beefy tomato stew" I don't think will catch on.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by erimir

I'm not from Texas, so I don't really care about whether chili should have beans or tomatoes in it or not. There's like a set of ingredients that can be in chili and still call it chili.

Chili is just one of those things that doesn't have a precise definition. Prototype theory (semantics) explains it well. The prototypical chili for most Americans I imagine is something like ground beef, beans, tomato puree and chili pepper, seasoned with cumin, garlic and onions (and probably other seasonings which are less important).

Yes, prototype theory makes sense in this context.

Quibbles about whether that's a proper chili aside, if you were somewhere in the US, but you didn't know where, and you went into a random restaurant (not one that specializes in authentic Southwestern or Mexican cuisine) and ordered chili, that's approximately what you'd expect to get. And if you're not from Texas or New Mexico or whatever, that's what you think of when you think about "chili". Obviously it can be modified from there, since vegetarian chili, white chili, green chili, non-spicy chili, etc. are also recognized as chili.

NO. NO, ERIMIR. NO. YOU ARE WRONG, CRAZY, AND STUPID.

This seems to imply that Texas chili/chili con carne is an ACTUAL prototype, in that it would be the model other chilis are based on.

This is not true. This is like saying that evolution means that your grandfather was an ape, or that Italic languages are an offshoot of Germanic or vice versa. Green chili is NOT a modified version of that red Texas chili. They both likely originated from a common ancestor, a proto-Indo Chili if you will, and I would EAT MY HAT if green chili were not a far more direct descendant of that proto chili than that boring tomato and hamburger sauce.

GOD. LEARN A FACT OR SOMETHING.

New Mexican cuisine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[erimir]

Originally Posted by lisarea

NO. NO, ERIMIR. NO. YOU ARE WRONG, CRAZY, AND STUPID.

This seems to imply that Texas chili/chili con carne is an ACTUAL prototype, in that it would be the model other chilis are based on.

This is not true.

Well, I wasn't saying that. I just meant that there can be variations from that that are also recognized as chili by most Americans. I didn't meant to imply that they originated in a certain order.

This is like saying that evolution means that your grandfather was an ape

Are you saying your grandfather wasn't an ape?

Because I find that hard to believe, phylogenetically.

that boring tomato and hamburger sauce.

Why do you hate Manwich?

[Sock Puppet]

I've always had an irrational hatred for sloppy joes of any ilk, kith or kin. Vomitburgers.

[Angakuk]

Iowa has something called a Maid-Rite. Basically it just another style of sloppy joe or Manwich. Iowa style chili is essentially a Maid-Rite with beans and without the bun.

Years ago Taco Bell had something called a Bell Burger. Again, that was basically a sloppy joe without the tomato sauce and with more seasoning. They were pretty darn good.

[BrotherMan]

I don't know who any of you people are anymore.

[Beth]

Did I start a chili battle? You are quite impassioned, lisarea. lol

[BrotherMan]

THANKS OBETHMA.

[Janet]

I'm staying out of this because I know none of you would approve of Detroit Coney chili, with its lovely, lovely beef hearts and I don't care.

[Beth]

Ew!!!! Beef hearts!

[Beth]

I am making beef empanadas tonight. I am using beef, garlic, tomato paste, onions, various spices, and rice for the filling. I went ahead and added some cocoa to the beef. I wish that I had tomatillos, but the cocoa and tomato paste will be fine. I am thinking of either baking them, or flash frying and then baking them. I love the bubbly, fried crust, but the greasiness makes me have a tummyache.

[Qingdai]

I planted a tomatillo this year thinking, "damn I miss chile verde" then when to mulch the damn thing and killed.

So ENJOY YOUR DAMNABLE NEW MEXICAN CUISINE WITHOUT ME.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by Janet

I'm staying out of this because I know none of you would approve of Detroit Coney chili, with its lovely, lovely beef hearts and I don't care.

Tell me more

I ate beef heart skewers at a Peruvian restaurant once. They were good. Tasted like lean beef, but the texture was a little different.

[Angakuk]

A friend and I were out camping in Arizona once and we bought some milk and eggs from a local rancher. They had just butchered a cow and his wife threw in the heart for free. We sliced it very thin and cooked it on skewers over the campfire. It was, as I recall, quite good.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by Qingdai

I planted a tomatillo this year thinking, "damn I miss chile verde" then when to mulch the damn thing and killed.

So ENJOY YOUR DAMNABLE NEW MEXICAN CUISINE WITHOUT ME.

I am eating a green chili breakfast burrito right this minute, in fact.

[Qingdai]

The only thing more frustrating than killing my tomatillo plant accidentally, is that you're eating a chile verde breakfast burrito.

[lisarea]

No, there is another thing more frustrating, I bet.

We live in a bedroom community, you know, standard suburb with ranch houses and stuff.

Except that, directly at the bottom of our street--.1 mile from our front door--is a small strip mall with five storefronts. There's a little family owned convenience store, a liquor store, a dry cleaner, a revolving pizza place (the current one is so, so good and I hope they last), and the tiniest closet sized burrito shop in the world run by a chirpy blonde lady named Cindy, who not only makes all of her green chili (and p. much everything else) from scratch, but also roasts her own green chilis in the parking lot next to the store.

It's really, really good, too and I can walk there in a couple of minutes any day but Sunday and go get me some. That's the place I snuck out to the other day when I was hiding in the yard.

That's not the kind I had today, though. The kind I had today was from Santiago's, left over after they catered at my son's work, so they were free.