Stravaigin, again.

We go here so often that I don't write it up, mostly due to the fact that I invariably have the burger which I have already rhapsodised about before.



However, this Friday we met up with Damian and Victoria for dinner and I (shock-horror) ordered something that was not the burger, allowing me the chance to talk about something different! I also remembered to take some photos which I don't usually do.



If you look closely at the mirror you might be able to make out the astonishing fact that last year they sold 6493 of the fish suppers. I have never had the fish supper but 6493 people can't be wrong.

HI and I got there early so we shared the Galloway beef carpaccio which was served with smoked peaches and rocket.




It was very very good. I could have eaten a whole plate of it myself. We then followed this with a bowl of the very good chips with mayo before our companions arrived.
As you know HI is fond of chili, and if it's on the menu he feels obliged to order it, if only to allow him that satisfaction that it is not as good as his own. Bizarrely all three of them had the chili.



I sneaked a taste and found it to be good, with hints of chocolate. But Hi is right, it has a one dimensional fiery top note, probably due to the use of chili powder as opposed to the five or so dried chili varieties HI uses.



I had the stuffed lamb shoulder with olive tapenade, tomato and ground lamb.
This was also very good and when I finished, my plate was clean.

Texan Red. A Homage: Part III

Part 3 – The Recipe

This is my personal favourite recipe, if you wanted a more authentic one - replace all the meat with beef and remove the porcinis.

For 4 (or today and tomorrow for 2)

1 onion (I prefer red)
4 cloves garlic
Oil (I prefer olive oil, others prefer a non-flavoured such as groundnut or walnut)
1 pound of meat (450g)
I currently use a 2:1 ratio of venison and pork
The better the cut of meat, the better the chili, but as you are cooking it for hours shoulder is fine.
Chiles (dried)– 3 anchos
- 3 guajillos
- 3 chipotles
1 or 2 others that may be floating around (e.g. pasilla, mulattos, cascabels or new Mexican reds)
50g porcini mushrooms – dried
half a tube of tomato paste (preferably sun-dried) about 40g
2 tablespoons Worcester sauce
1 teaspoon salt (but add more to taste)
1 tablespoons cumin seeds
1 tablespoons sweet smoked paprika
1 tablespoons dried Mexican oregano
1 tablespoon peppercorns (szechuan peppercorns are nice also)
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon chocolate
extra heat – cayenne pepper or I prefer grinding some piquin chiles
Juice 1 lime
Coriander
Heavy-duty cookware – I use a Le Creuset skillet and cocotte pot (orange).



1. Boil some water and soak your porcini for 30mins.



2. Dry toast your cumin seeds (in a skillet) for about 1 minute then set aside.



3. cut the tops of your chiles and empty out the seeds. Dry toast them til aromatic but before they burn (20 – 30 seconds), they will smoke.



4. Soak the toasted chiles in boiled water for about 20 minutes.



5. dice your meat, either mince on the widest setting (chile grind) or dice to half-inch cubes (aim for half the size of your pinkie’s tip, or a small game dice).



6. fry your meat in batches in a skillet in the oil, when browned place in your pot.



7. grind your cumin, peppercorns. Add to the pot.
8. fry your diced onion till coloured in the skillet with some more oil, then add the garlic (diced or crushed). Add this to the pot.



N.B. You may want to deglaze the skillet with some chile liquor after frying both the meat and the onion. Add the deglazed goodness to the pot.



9. Drain your chiles (reserving the liquor), place in a blender with a little of the soaking liquor. Blend to a pulp. Add to pot.




10. Drain porcinis (reserve the liquor). Add to pot.
11. Add the Worcester sauce, salt, paprika, Mexican oregano, cinnamon, and tomato paste.

12. Cook this, covered, for 30 mins on the lowest possible heat.

13. At 30 mins taste it. It requires that long before you can accurately gauge the heat of the chili. At this point I usually add some chocolate I prefer to use this from Cacao Sampaka in Barcelona (very Mexican, and preferred to the brown sugar that others may add),




and extra heat - a teaspoon or two of cayenne pepper or a ground teaspoon of piquins may be needed. You can also adjust the seasoning at this point.

14. Then uncover and cook for a further 90 minutes. You mat want to vary the cover-uncover times depending on how wet the chili is.



If at any point it looks to dry use either the chile or porcini liquor to dampen it.

15. With 30 minutes to go (that’s 90 minutes into cooking) I add the drained beans.

16. Then at the end of cooking (2 hours) I will add the juice of 1 lime and some coriander. These, along with the chocolate are my particular flair. As you find as you read there are a myriad of options at this late stage to elevate your chilli. I just feel these items please my palate the most. Please experiment.




17. You can now do the spoon test and eat. Maybe with some rice if you want carbs, or tortillas and guacamole for the fuller Mexican. Many use sour cream (the fat is useful in emulsifying the capsicum and tempering the heat). If I feel that way inclined, I prefer some cheese – Gruyere at present as it melts better than the more obvious American cheddar or Manchego.

Masa harina is a Mexican thickening agent along the lines of corn starch. Some add this at the end to thicken the liquid but if cooked correctly it should not be necessary. It has no intrinsic flavour so I never use it (plus the chocolate will do a little of the same).

Eat, drink, be merry…

Texan Red: A Homage: Part II

Part 2- random musings

So based on my readings and tastings, what do you need for a chili con carne?
Actually this part is really easy (the clue is in the title), meat and chiles - that is all.
You would be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn’t add garlic and cumin to the mix but not much else.

The concept I like is that of it being peasant food, cheap and easy to produce but nourishing. This describes most of the food I like and all of the food I cook.

Most of the controversies focuses on tomatoes, water and beans.

As you will see I do add tomatoes but that is a personal choice gleaned through many creations with and without. I feel the tomato add to the chiles (same vegetable family), but prefer puree which gives the kick without the dilution a can of tomatoes, or roasted tomatoes would do.

Water, stock or tomato juice is frowned upon. A bowl of red should be a thick semi-solid mass. A spoon should stand upright when placed in it. This may cause a textural issue but there is some science behind limiting the amount of dilutant early on to allow the key ingredients (meat/chiles) the maximum exposure to each other.

Beans, while almost always present are outlawed in US chili cook-offs, are added by almost all cooks on completion of testing and prior to general consumption. The extreme would be for beans on the side, like your rice or tortilla, etc, but I feel they are of major benefit. They should be pinto beans, nothing else works as well. Kidney beans, I am told, are too sweet but personally, are just too obvious.

Liquid is a key issue – recipes may call for booze – tequila, beer, wine or stock even coffee but this should be balanced with the need to keep the chili from drowning. Altering the proportion of lid-on and lid-off time can compensate for over dilution.

As with most stews flavour improves through the cooking time and continues to enhance with resting. Often chili-heads will swear it tastes better the next day, a few places only serve day-rested chili.

Texan Red: A Homage: Part I

Boy, this post has been a long time coming! It's creator, HI would say that it, like its subject, is a thing not to be rushed but to be cultivated slowly, lovingly with care and thought. So without much farther ado... I give you Texan Red.


Part 1

So to start I should give my credentials (or lack thereof) with regard to adding another chili recipe/dissertation to the interweb.
I should also apologise for my frequent reveries, I will try to keep these in parenthesis.
I am a born Scot who continues to reside in Scotland. I have a love for spicy food but more of the chile than the spicy variety (as opposed to my wife’s lineage). I am a fan of Mexican food (as it is made in the UK), but have never been to Mexico (it is on the (long) list). We have been to Austin, Texas 3 times as a couple and a further 2 times on my own. As chili is historically a tex-mex recipe rather than an authentic Mexican recipe I see this as relevant.

In Glasgow we have an excellent deli of more than a decade standing called Lupe Pintos. They open their delis (here and in Edinburgh) after a long post-punk/finding themselves tour of Mexico and the southern US in the 80s. Apart from being an excellent source of tequila, US and Mexican beers and dried chiles they have also written an excellent travel-log come cookbook of their time in the Americas called 'Two cooks and a suitcase'
They do include an “authentic Oxalo chile recipe” but history would suggest the Mexicans are not necessary the best at making chili.

I started making chili about ten years ago, I think following my first visit to Austin. In part it was the realisation that it was not the dish I had disliked growing up, but also due my awareness that in this global world it would not be impossible to source the key ingredients in this corner of the world.

To explain terms, chile is the vegetable available in both fresh and dried varieties but unless you live in or near Mexico or have your own hothouse, dried is the way to go. Plus, dried are more consistent in flavour and particularly heat, so most chilli aficionados would use these anyway. Chili (with one l) is the dish, actually chili con carne (chiles with meat), but chili con carne conjures up images of chili in a can and the bolognas chili powder one-night stand of my past. (chili alone should mean sans carne, but I am short handing).

It should also be noted, as a man, I ascribe to the Robert Rodriquez way of thinking with regard to food –“choose a couple of dishes and make them well”. His Puerco Pibil on the extras on his Once Upon A Time In Mexico DVD is one of my two, chili being the other, (I just need to find a third to be happy). Well worth a view (I guess curious eater may sweet talk me into taking you through the Pibil in the not too distant future).

For fun I should mention Heston Blumenthal’s attempt.
As seen on his TV show and in his second book Further Adventures in Search of Perfection. I will just say as with all his food he revels in the complexities and while he may have made something lovely, the spirit of chili is lost.
Here is a particularly unhappy response.

And Paul Levy’s Guardian review of Heston’s chilli.

To end this pre-amble I should put in some references.

A Bowl of Red by Frank X. Tolbert



The Tex-Mex Cookbook: A History in Recipes and Photos by Robb Walsh




Homesick Texan’s blog on Chili

Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen



a bit of a bible and like the Lupe pintos cookbook you can see his reasons for avoiding focusing on chilli so as to refocus us on the wider Mexican palate. It still includes a “very, very, very good chili” recipe.

And I must reference Harold McGee’s McGee on Food & Cooking – not so much a cookbook as a textbook.



Everything you ever wanted to know about the biological and scientific background to foodstuffs and the cooking thereof. Of particular relevance to us is his coverage of chiles, beans and tequila.
A book that will last a lifetime.