Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Judge's Choice Chili Cook-Off Winner!

Yes, I'm shamefully bragging. But it's my first food-related win ever and I'm excited! I work at a sweet advertising agency, and every Thursday during the summer we have a happy hour in the courtyard at 4pm. And to keep happy hour new and exciting (as if I needed any more of an excuse to drink wine and snack on gummy worms), each HH usually has a theme. This time it was a chili cook-off!

I wanted to make a chili full of flavor, meat, heat, and even more meat. My favorite chilis have always been more meaty than soupy, and more meaty than beany, so therefore I used about 7 lbs of a variety of meat in this chili.

[my itsy bitsy little counter space for cutting up all the veggies. thanks mama for the cute cupcake apron, and to Greg for the heavenly Calphalon knives!]

I don't have the exact recipe, and I sort of forgot because this was a couple weeks ago... Oops! But these are the ingredients to the best of my memory (which isn't great).

Meats:
- Dry Spanish chorizo, probably 2 or 3 links. Cut 2 links into small cubes, and leave one to mash up in the pot.
- BACON. I used about 6 strips. Cook it till crisp then break it up into small pieces.
- 3 different kinds of beef. I don't really remember, but I picked cuts that were thick and had great marbling (while being on sale). Get around 6 lbs worth.

Veggies:
- Diced: red and yellow bell peppers, celery (4 or 5 stalks), onion (half a brown, half a white)
- Garlic, minced and sliced.
- Canned whole tomatoes, crush by hand
- Tomato sauce, I think, maybe half a can...
- Serrano peppers, 2 or 3, I think the day of the cook-off it wasn't spicy enough, so I added in a couple more.
- Jalapenos soaked in chipotle (Alton Brown taught me that one). don't add too much of the chipotle, it's very overpowering.

Seasonings:
- Cumin
- Cayenne
- Lots of cracked pepper
- Garlic salt
- Onion powder
- Probably a cube of boullion
- A couple others, coriander/chili/etc, whatever was lying around the pantry pretty much.

Other:
- Great American white beans (I think that's what they are called... doesn't matter)
- chicken or beef stock

1. Generously season meat with salt, pep, cayenne, whatever. Sear all the meat with some of the garlic to lock in juices and flavor. Throw in the chorizo, mash up the uncubed one in the pot. Add in all the diced veggies. And toss in all the seasonings. Let it all cook together a little bit.

2. When veggies are getting a little soft, dump in the stock. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the pot to get all those yummy burnt meat pieces. Add in the tomato stuff and half of the bacon and whatever else I forgot to metion so far. I put the other half of the bacon in before serving so that there's a nice crunch. Bring to a bubble, then pour into your crock pot and simmer it at least overnight. I served it with sharp cheddar cheese.

3. Serve to the masses. Notice how there are no soup puddles left standing? All that meat drunk it all up:

4. Claim the prize! This is a fellow Bruin and agency VP, Pete Imwalle. What did I win, you ask? 2 movie tickets, an extra large Angels t-shirt, an Angels baseball hat, and extra large orange Oxygen channel flip flops. Angels stuff was given away since I am 110% a San Francisco GIANTS fan. But most importantly, I won the coveted pride-and-glory bragging rights.

Now I'm hungry again... What's funny is that the day of the cook-off, my mouth was so burnt from the test pot I made the 2 days before, that I couldn't even eat my chili! But thankfully I had lots of hungry coworkers and my roommate Steph to help me make sure the pot was cookoff-ready before sending it out. =)