It’s time tomorrow morning to test-drive my chili for the hopefelly next weekend taste-off. Our neighbor is new and I know where he lives but don’t have email or a phone address.
I am using LadyBird Johnson’s Pedernales Chili recipe that they served to thousands on their Texas ranch near Austin in the early 1960’s when JFK was president.
The recipe simply calls for “chili meat” and “chili powder.” I wanted Ancho and Cascabel but was only able to find the powder version for Aleppo with is less than hot than Penzeys (great spice shop for visiting and online ordering as well, shop http://www.penzeys.com) and less than their hottest chile, the Pequin.
My last chili venture was over 20 years ago and was a disaster because I’d bought Thai bird chiles, a plant at the farm market and used a part of one and the chili was inedible so I’m afraid of going too spicy.
I bought three pounds of chuck steak and one pound of boneless short ribs. I ordered a meat grinder attachment to the KitchenAid 5 qt. stand mixer I bought myself in 1989 and have been waiting for this attachment to come in for the past few days. Little did I know late this afternoon that I had one just like it, unopened, from December 1993! No, I am not a hoarder. We’ve just had our stuff in storage for so long that coming up with six boxes of Christmas decorations was a bit of a surprise, especially as in over a decade together, we’ve never had a tree!
Of course there will be onion and garlic and tomato. No beans as this is a Texas chili! Will let you know how it comes out and what changes I have to make for next weekend. I’d really like testers to taste the chili alone then add lime, cheddar, chopped onion or parsley. I don’t have cilantro in the frig today. I will bake some cornbread, though. Cheers, Dee
Cooking with Dee 