chili—one a traditional Texas-style made with nothing but
beef and chiles and the other the type most of us grew up
on, with beans and tomatoes, including both a version made
with short ribs and one made with ground beef.
Either way, there are a number of things we can all agree
on about a good chili:
It should have a rich, complex flavor that combines sweet,
bitter, hot, fresh, and fruity elements in balance.
- It should have a robust, meaty, beefy flavor.
- If it contains beans, the beans should be tender, creamy,
and intact. - It should be bound together by a thick deep-red sauce.
To achieve these goals, I decided to break down chili into
its distinct elements—the chiles, the beef, the beans, and the
flavorings—and perfect each one before putting them all
together in one big happy pot.
The Chiles
I have bad memories of my chili-eating college days—when
chili was made by adding a can of beans and a can of
tomatoes to ground beef, then adding one of every spice on
the rack (and too much cumin) and simmering it. The
finished product inevitably had a totally unbalanced flavor
with a powdery, gritty mouthfeel from all the dried spices.