A Bowl of Red

Tonight, I'm making Chili. No, that's not right. Tonight, I'm beginning to make Chili. To be more precise, I'm making Texas-Style Chili aka Bowl of Red. And I'm using a cook book for the recipe.

If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you will know how much I love the Chili that Adam Perry Lang makes at his restaurant Daisy May's BBQ. You can always rely on the chili at Daisy May's. It's always fantastic. Rich, spicy, thick and savory. Everything a bowl of red can be.

So what does Adam and Daisy have to do with my making Chili? Well, in the beginning of the summer, Adam published the cook book Serious Barbecue. Let me tell you it's a seriously good cookbook and highly recommended, and on page 193 he lists his recipe for Texas-Style Chili aka Bowl of Red. Since I bought the book, way back in June, I've been dying to try out this recipe. If this chili is half as good as the chili he serves, it will make an outstanding meal.

I'm not going to give you the recipe. You'll have to buy the book for that, but I'm following the recipe as closely as possible. I can't tell you how rarely I follow a recipe. Usually I use recipes as inspiration and adjust them to what I have on hand or to what flavors I like. Adam's chili is so good that I'm following his recipe as closely as I possibly can.

So far, I've only made two small modifications. Adam call's for 1 (one) lb of whole pod dried chilies, preferably New Mexican. Now I thought I could buy those in one of my local markets, but all they had were Mexican chilies, so I bought 2 oz of Chile Guajillo, 4 oz of Chile Mulato and 10 oz of Chile Ancho all produced by Central Chilera de Puebla. I've never used the Guajillo or Mulato Chilies before but Ancho and I are old friends. I hope these chilies aren't too hot!

So far, this has been a complex process. I had to seed and stem all the dried chilies, soak and steam them and puree them with some more ingredients as per the recipe. I would say it took about 45 minutes to prepare it to this point. Right now, the meat and chili mixture is marinating in my refrigerator. That's a picture of the meat mixture above. I don't have any plastic bags large enough to hold the 4 lbs of chuck, cut into 1 (one) inch cubes, so I used a baking dish. The meat is thoroughly coated with the chili mixture, thinly sliced sweet onions and micro-planed garlic.

More tomorrow after it hits the smoker.

Oh, if you decide to make this. Buy some disposable rubber gloves before you begin. Chili oil on your hands leads to chili oil in places chili oil doesn't belong. Trust me. It's not pretty.