Texas Chili

Today I made my favorite chili recipe, lots of meat and red sauce, and more importantly NO BEANS. I cut it out of the Williams Sonoma catalog years ago (I couldn't find any reference to it on their website). It is also a fairly simple recipe of meat, chili powder, garlic, oregano and cumin. Commercial chili powder is usually a mix of chili powder mixed with oregano and cumin (Cooks Illustrated recommends Spice Islands), but today all I had was pure ground New Mexico red chili powder so I went with that. It is fairly mild so the only heat came from the cumin. I ended up with only about 2.5 lb of meat instead of 5lb so I cut everything in half. That was fine except the chili tended to cook down faster over the 1.5 hr of simmering so I added more water at the end.

This recipe is a little unusual it uses olive oil to cook the flour. The spices are cooked in the oil for a short time before added to the simmering meat. The oil sizzles as it is added to the pot and the mixture looks very red at the beginning. After 1.5 hr of simmering, the chili is a darker shade, looking more like rich chocolate.

I usually serve this chili over rice with a dollop of Greek yogurt on top.

Texas Chili (from William Sonoma catalog)

5lb lean beef, cubed
3 Tbsp sugar
2 1/2 Tbsp salt
1 quart water

3/4 cup olive oil
5 Tbsp flour
5 cloves garlic, minced
6-8 Tbsp ground chili
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cumin

Combine beef, sugar, salt and water. Bring to a boil, skim and reduce heat immediately to a simmer.

Heat oil in skillet, add flour and cook for 2 min without browning. Add garlic, chili powder, pepper, oregano, and cumin to oil, cook briefly and add to meat. Simmer chili for about 1 1/2 hr until tender.