White Hot Guilt

Caramelization, in my personal experience, is a fickle whore.

Oh sure, with somebody who actually pays attention when she is cooking, I'm sure it's slightly more consistent. But who does that? That World of Warcraft doesn't play itself!

I'm in the process of making chili for tomorrow's non-competitive chili "cook-off" at my favorite den of sin, the Sports Page. I've made essentially the same recipe for about eight years now, making minor tweaks where prudent. For example, I've eliminated habeneros completely; it's just better for everybody involved.

I call my chili "White Hot Guilt". A few years ago, I cherished an ambition to compete at the local (COMPETITIVE)chili cook-off in Westport Plaza. Instead of actually registering, which costs a whopping forty American dollars, I named my shit and had a friend of mine, who is a genius at graphic design, create a logo. It was a sexy logo, too. A voluptuous nun dressed in a, erm, modified habit. Honestly, it was suitable to be cover art for a Lords of Acid album. Alas, five years later, here I sit, with my bitchin, slightly blasphemous logo and pretentious chili name, looking wistfully east every September while other people win my prizes because my fucking chili is BETTER THAN ALL OF YOU PEOPLE, HONESTLY WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR RECIPE, IT SUCKS AND YOU SHOULD BE DESTROYED.

So yeah, I call my chili "White Hot Guilt". While not technically a white chili, I use white meat instead of beef, and I use only green peppers. I took to roasting half of the vegetables a few months ago because it broadens the flavor spectrum (ugh, listen at me) due to the caramelization. Well, today, since I left my shit in the oven for, oh, 45 minutes longer than it needed, everything was burnt. My garlic cloves--EIGHT OF THEM--looked like tiny pieces of coal, my shallots were destroyed, the peppers, you could really only tell they were peppers because of their vaguely triangular shape. All told, today I wasted:

2 poblanos (ugh, the anguish)
2 jalepenos
1 serrano
1 anaheim
8 cloves of garlic
2 shallots
1/2 sweet yellow onion
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp kosher salt

And that's just so far! The chili has only been going for about an hour! Who knows what I'm going to fuck up next.

Good thing I got spares. The replacement roast has already been removed from the oven, probably not at optimal doneness, but I'm not taking any chances.

So--here's my recipe for tonight's batch. If I don't screw the dog with regards to anything else, it should be pretty good. If only they were giving prizes.

2.5 lbs pork loin, just get the cheapest, but least fatty, meat you can find.
1...ok, 1/2 large sweet yellow onion
4 poblano peppers
4 jalepenos (edit, reduce to 2)
1 anaheim
2 serranos (edit, reduce to 1, see, it's always a work in progress)
1 head of garlic
4 shallots
3+ tablespoons of cumin (since I'm still in the process of cooking, I don't know how much I'm going to wind up using, probably around 5)
1 tablespoon of ground white pepper (which, in retrospect, was overkill)
2+ tablespoons of Jamaican Jerk, Walkerswood is the best
1 tablespoonish of kosher salt, but be sure to taste a lot, there is no coming back from too salty
Brown sugar as needed, if you overdid it on the peppers, for instance
1+ tablespoon of allspice.

Wait, allow me to stop here for a moment. I'm not actually sure what I'm using is allspice. The jar just reads "Mixed Spices". I picked it up in an Arabic grocery store in St. Ann, and while the lady told me it was allspice, she might have just meant that it has allspice in it. It was her recommendation, I've never cooked with allspice before now. So it could be allspice, it could be the ground remains of Yasir Arafat, sold to gullible infidels who fancy themselves chefs. Who knows. Whatever it is, though, it makes a big difference in my chili. It's pretty damn delicious.

Anyway!

1 jar salsa verde, the Herdez stuff is the best, but anything will do
2-4 12 oz. bottles of Sam Adams Boston Lager.

Ok, another digression. I've tried probably 20 different beers in this chili, and while pretty much anything will do, I've found beers with a slight bitterness to be the best. You'll want to stay away from IPA's and fruit beers, I think my dumb ass did use Pete's Strawberry Blonde once thinking that the strawberry flavor might mellow-out some of the heat from the habanero, yeah, I wasn't bright in my 20's. But yeah, Boston Lager is the best I've tried so far.

3 cans great northern beans, drained
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

Beans, of course, are optional, but I've found that I tend to go overboard on peppers, and they're a nice mitigating agent.

So! Here's what you do.

1. 45 minutes before you plan to start making chili in earnest, set your oven to 400 degrees. Take half of the veggies you plan on using, chop them into manageable pieces, stick em on a foil-lined baking sheet, drizzle on olive oil and throw it in the oven. SET YOUR TIMER FOR 45 MINUTES. Then, go play World of Warcraft and catch up on the Medium episodes you have saved on your TiVo. When you feel like it, go ahead and chop up the other half of your veggies to manageable sized pieces and put them in the food processor until they're homogeneous in size. You'll know it's done when all your stuff looks like a frothy, green pulp. Dump it in a colander and add some kosher salt to facilitate draining.

2. Once the timer goes off, remove your stuff from the oven promptly. Don't just turn the oven off and leave them in there like I did. You know, an oven is still hot, even after you turn it off.

3. Chop your pork! It's easier if you freeze it for a few hours before. And if you find boneless pork chops cheap, that's just the best, it's like chili nirvana.

4. Go ahead and start up your chili pot. Dump about 3 tablespoons of olive oil in the pan, and start it at medium high. Put your pork in the pot, and if you're lucky, you'll get a good browning on the meat(Maillard reaction, for the win!). Alas, mine didn't this time, but it's ok.

5. Once all the pork has turned white, dump in your (formerly) frothy pulp. Stir it so that it coats the pork, and crank the heat up to high. Walk away and watch TV, and only remember to stir your shit again when your husband tells you that your chili is macing him. I usually let it cook like this for about 10 minutes, and add oil as you see fit.

6. BEER TIME. Add two of your beers. Then, stir in 3 tablespoons of cumin, one tablespoon of "mixed spices", a teaspoon of kosher salt, two tablespoons of jerk, half of the salsa verde, and the white pepper (but upon further thinking, you could really reduce that white pepper to a teaspoon if that, this stuff is going to kill people with all the peppers in it already). Stir it whenever you think about it. Oh yeah, and reduce the heat to mediumish.

7. Crack a beer for yourself. You've earned it! Start another shitty and self-indulgent blog. Everybody wants to hear your thoughts! Forget about the very chili that is the subject of your first post. Oh shit, I need to check the chili!

8. By now your meat should be done enough for you to try some. Add some more spices, you'll need more cumin for sure, and probably some more salt.

9. Text your friend and find out what you're doing after this fucking chili is done. Go to the bar? Yippee!

10. Your chili might be a leeeetle too spicy, but that's ok, because now we're going to add the beans. Please, don't use dried beans and let me tell you why. Yeah, sure, purists be all like, "No preservatives, it's so much better for you, all natural, bleah bleah bleah", but when one is cooking with beer, for some reason, the beer just does not want to penetrate the beans! Last week, I tried using dried beans (mostly out of laziness, I didn't feel like carrying cans because they're heavy) and after four goddamn hours, the beans were merely al dente. That was unacceptable. The chili was really good, in fact, the spices were probably more perfect than ever, but chili is not supposed to be crunchy. Anyway! You can rinse the great northern beans, you really don't need to, but you can. Always rinse the black beans, though, because you don't want that nasty black crap in the can to wind up in your chili. It will just make your chili look gross. I added another beer at this step, too.

The major downfall with canned beans, though, is that if you let them cook for too long, they'll start to kind of explode. While this isn't bad for chili texture--it helps with thickening--well, you're using beans, not bean dip. Letting all of them explode would defeat the purpose. So, you only want to spend at most 20 minutes at this stage.

I actually just got done with the beans myself. I tried a piece of pork, and it was, frankly, capital A Awesome. A wee bit spicy, but I don't make chili for pussies!

Wow, that was really long. Thanks for sticking with me. Honestly, not to sound conceited or anything, this batch will probably be the best I've made, and that's saying a lot because I've made some good damn chili. If you pay attention to caramelization, caramelization will pay attention to you.

Now, I am off to the bar for to reward myself with a few beers!