Merry Christmas: DJ's Christmas Chili

Okay, no games today -- I'll save the Arkadian Warriors review for later this week.

It's Christmas Eve, and tradition in my family says we have Chili either tonight or on Christmas day. This year, everyone is coming over to my house for a relaxed time of playing games and chowing down on chili.

I just made two pots of my special Christmas recipe chili. This is a sweet, aromatic chili -- a little different from your typical cook-off fare. But I like it -- it has a Yuletide air about it.

DJ's Christmas Chili
Serves: 20

• A half-handful each of Serrano, Poblano & Jalapeño chillies -- this will vary according to taste and the strength of the peppers.
• 1 orange bell pepper (you can substitute green -- I just like the color)
• (optional) 2 Habañero chillies (orange, not Red Savina, unless you are feeling sadistic)
• 1 lb. pork sausage
• 1 lb. ground pork (for a slightly stronger taste, substitute with another pound of sausage)
• 4 lbs. ground beef
• 1½ lbs. stew beef (re-cubed smaller) or teriaki strips (split smaller)
• 1 - 14½ oz. can diced tomatoes (you can use crushed, but diced is better)
• 2 - 1lb 13 oz. cans tomato sauce
• 2 - 15 oz. cans pinto beans
• 3 - 16 oz. cans kidney beans
• ½ lb honey (you can double this for mild honies like orange blossom -- NOT clover!)
• 3 oz. mild molasses (unsulfered)
• 1 cup mid-western-style BBQ sauce (molasses base, not vinegar. I use KC Masterpiece)
• 2 Tb. salt
• 1 Tb. chili powder
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 Tb. red curry
• 1 Tb. Chinese 5 spice (you can substitue cinnamon, but I prefer 5 spice, which includes hint of cinnamon, in this recipe)
• 1 Tb. paprika
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 2 Tb. black ground pepper
• 1 or 2 Tb. minced garlic (3-7 cloves)
• 2 Tb. unsweetened cocoa
• (optional) 1 cup unsifted masa flour (corn flour -- look in the ethnic foods section. NOT corn starch or corn meal!)

Take all your peppers & chillies, wash them and place them on your outdoor grill for roasting, stems and all. Peel the onion, cut it in half and put it on the grill as well. About 20-30 minutes -- you want the outside of the chillies to be blackened!

Pan brown all of your meat. It is extremely important, especially with the ground beef, that you thoroughly drain off the fat once you've browned the meat. That excess fat is what gives people heartburn, not the chillies.

Dump all the browned and drained meat in a large soup pot. Add the tomatoes and two large cans of water. Turn up your stove fire to high -- you want to get things boiling, not violently, but nicely boiling.

Add the beans, honey, molasses, BBQ sauce and spices. Also add the cocoa -- this is used not so much for taste as to bind any stray fat to the meat. (Old chili cook-off trick!)

Pull your chillies and onions off of the grill. Chop the onions -- a chopper here will help, since the onions will be soft. Pull the stems from your chillies -- they should be very soft, so the stems will pop right out. Mince all of your chillies (seeds* and all) using a food processor or fine chopper. Dump all of it into your pot.

Turn the fire down to a simmer for two hours.

You can now add the masa if you want a thick chili -- this stuff will immediately thicken things up as you blend it in, so be sure to have a strong spoon!

That's it -- it's now ready to serve, though I prefer to let it simmer overnight, or cool overnight in the refrigerator.

This is a very different chili, somewhat reminiscent of Indian or Thai food, though still a Texas chili at its heart.

If you are getting an odd after-taste, you probably used a clover honey! Mild honies work much better.

I have considered using coconut milk instead of honey, but have never tried it. If you do, let me know how it turned out!

Hint: If you find that you've over-done it on the chillies, you can rescue your chili by adding another 3 lbs. of ground beef, another can of tomato sauce, another can of diced tomatoes and two more cans of beans (pinto or kidney) -- assuming your pot can hold it all! That should cut the heat while maintaining the overall character of the chili. If you used masa, do not add more masa! You will end up turning the chili into a paste.

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* A common misconception is that the heat of a chili is concentrated in the seeds. It's actually concentrated in the ribbing, where the pepper manufactures capsaicin. The seeds do absorb some capsaicin, but the bulk of it is in the white portion of the ribbed structures inside the chili.