Rogers called it the "bleesed bowl of red". Texas has
laws about what you can put in it. Chili truly is an All-American
Types of Chili
The most common type of chili consists of ground beef and beans
in a tomato-based sauce. It can be found in restaurants and kitchens
throughout the country.
law prohibits putting beans in chili. A real Texas-style chili
will contain nothing but meat, chile peppers, and other spices.
While tomatoes are not strictly prohibited, they are not traditional
as cowboys in the Old West did not have them.
chili isn't truly the chili most people recognize today. It's
a cross between chili and an eastern Mediterranean stew served
with spaghetti noodles.
chili is used in chili cook-offs. Judges at cook-offs only get
one spoonful of each type, so competition chili is much richer
than chili made for a meal.
If a man can cook nothing else, he can make chili. There's no
limit to the number of variations and it's nearly impossible to
screw it up. At Manlyweb we believe that Texas-style is the only
real chili. Not that there's anything wrong with beans, but serve
them on the side, don't put them in the chili. The only required
ingredients for chili are meat and chile peppers. Use this as
your starting point and add other ingredients only as needed.
is the traditional meat for chili, but that doesn't mean other
meats don't work, venison can make a fine chili. While you can
use hamburger, a better choice is coarse ground chuck, or (the
ideal) lean chuck cut into half-inch cubes. Brown the meat in
the chili pot, adding a little grease if needed.
chile peppers can be fresh or dried. There a number of commercial
mixes available for chili, however avoid using ordinary "chili
powder". Fresh chilies should be cleaned, and the stem and
seeds removed. Puree the chilies in a blender with a little bit
of water. Be sure to rinse out the blender before making margaritas.
this point you may need to add some liquid or thickening agents
to bring the chili to the proper consistency. Chili should always
be too thick to pour. Water and beer are common liquids, while
flour and masa harina (corn flour) are good thickeners. If you're
nostalgic for your old army days, you can use ground cooked beans
as a thickener.
common chili ingredients include garlic, oregano, and cumin. Tomatoes
and onions are also popular.
good chili is usually thick enough to make a spoon stand up, chili
is not to be eaten with a spoon. Tortilla chips or, at least,
soda crackers should be used to eat the chili.
Today's chili competitions draw their origins from a scheme by
Carrol Shelby to help sell some land he had in Texas. Shelby had
bought some land in Terlingua, Texas and had hoped to sell it
to developers. Terlingua is in southwest Texas near the Mexican
border and, at the time, had a population of about two people.
Shelby was having problems selling the land.
friend, Frank Tolbert, was trying to sell his new book on chili,
"A Bowl of Red". They decided to solve both their problems
with the first World's Championship Chili Cookoff, held in November
of 1967 in Terlingua. They continued to hold the competition in
subsequent years and, in 1970, the International Chili Society