Showing posts with label chili con carne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chili con carne. Show all posts
Cheese crackers, red chili con carne
Raw ↑
Baked ↓
The cheese crackers are something. They started out as Saltine soda crackers but with buttery goodness added, and then the butter was changed to cheese.
1 Cup white all purpose flour
1/2 cup cheese, any mixed cheese.
1Tablespoon buttermilk powder (my new favorite ingredient)
1/8 teaspoon baking soda to react with buttermilk
1 teaspoon baking powder to lift the heavy cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
Process to desired pulverization.
1/4 -- 1/2 cup water through feeding tube until mixture turns into a ball that rolls around the processor.
375℉ for 10 minutes
Makes two full sheets (in reality 1/2 size professional baking pans, but they are large), 2 dozen squares if scored the way shown. The scraps can be reprocessed with additional water for an additional dozen, nearly 72 cheese crackers.
The chile con carne is nothing. I had considerable minced beef and lamb hamburger meat prepared and chilled that needed to be used before it went off. An onion is diced, a few garlic cloves smashed and diced. Cumin and cilantro added, with s/p and specific chile powders. Additional dry chile flakes crumbled by hand because the powder is insufficiently hot, oregano.
Two tins of beans with their packing liquid are added to that.
One tin of San Marzano tomatoes added to that, whole, not diced or anything. Heated. That's it. No cheese because the crackers are cheesed up.
Chili con carne, steamed corn bread buns
I am showing this cheese because if you live some place normal you might not know in America individual slices of cheese are actually wrapped individually and sold in packages as a uniform block, except individually wrapped. Every single slice of cheese has its own wrapper. And the wrapper is plastic. See? That shows you. It is not real cheese that lives. No self-respecting cheese-maker would do that.
But that doesn't mean it is bad. American hamburgers require this cheese and so does American macaroni and cheese. I am not saying they cannot be made otherwise, or even made better, I am saying they would not be American.
Heavy cream added around edges and not mixed.
Corn bread mantou. Steaming, what a great way to make buns.
The thing is, kids prefer sponge-type white bread, the worst kind. And they like the crusts cut off. I did. Because the crusts are rough. The texture is wrong. For kids.
Eating a whole bun is eating all the crust of a small loaf of bread all at once. Steamed buns got no crusts because they're not baked.
I bet you $100 steam buns were invented because it was not so common to have ovens. Easier to steam.
The next time I will not bother with processing popcorn and pre-cooking it like polenta. I will use masa harina instead, plus it is better, not just easier, 1/2 masa harina, 1/2 white flour. I love these little buns.
They do not have to be this shape, of course. If the buns are to be used for bbq or something sloppy as is done with duck, then stretched out flat shape is better, one that can be folded in half rather than a bun that is cut in half to hold something.
Chili con carne, cornbread
Aw, you lost your color. That's alright, I'll put it back with paprika and tomato paste and stewed tomato.
Corn milled like this is best brought to a boil first. It will absorb 3X its mass in liquid to a sludge. That will be the corn component of cornbread batter. The other half is wheat flour and liquid. The total mass is tenderized with butter, fortified with egg and lifted by it along with additional baking powder. Sweetened with sugar, and flavored further however you wish. This has fresh jalapeño, and melty cheese, powdered cayenne and salt.↑
↓ The chili has chocolate, both buttons and powder, the addition of tomato at the end cloaked the disc chocolate taken from a box in the pantry in another room behind me and with the powdered cocoa right there at hand so a scant 1/2 teaspoon cocoa powder is added on top of the tomato and that changed the whole thing, added depth like garlic does except more delightful.
↓ The chili has chocolate, both buttons and powder, the addition of tomato at the end cloaked the disc chocolate taken from a box in the pantry in another room behind me and with the powdered cocoa right there at hand so a scant 1/2 teaspoon cocoa powder is added on top of the tomato and that changed the whole thing, added depth like garlic does except more delightful.
The idea is chili con carne the way children will have it, say at school cafeteria, basic with minced beef and American cheese. Cornbread instead of saltine crackers. It just seemed good, and it is.
The whole way through I was thinking of ways to improve it. I have poblano chiles that are excellent for a thing like this. But no, this is kept simple.
Except the minced beef is extraordinary. Ground beef. Chuck, I think. I don't know. Expensive as h-e-double cattle prods I had ground beef out to thaw but then went on a mission in the freezing sub temperatures to Oliver's for rib-eye steaks for a dinner tomorrow and while there at Oliver's asked the guy to wrap 1/2 a pound of ground beef. It is different. It smells funny. Aged. All by itself as minced beef browning it tastes quite amazing. Adulterating all that are three bratwurst sausages pinched out of their casings. So about a pound of meat to go with this small amount of beans.
It is cold outside. The sun finally came out full blast and the remaining snow on the scrapped streets evaporate with the snap of the fingers while the un-scrapped streets remain frozen as ice. I am in the truck in bright sunlight, warmed by it, and in front of me is a towering wall of gray with no top visible. Today again as yesterday that same wall of weather is observable advancing on the city from the West, obscuring the mountains and everything between right up to where it doesn't and the buildings are clear. There is no fading out area at all. Solid gray wall. And cold. I could actually see the cold coming right at me while I'm sitting fat and happy in the bright warming sun.
There should be a rainbow or something equally extraordinary for a thing like that.
The traffic was frenetic all day. All parking taken. Drivers running right up your tailpipe. Everyone moving, eager to do something, move somewhere, get things done quickly, but also eager to get out of the cold fast as possible.
It is cold outside. The sun finally came out full blast and the remaining snow on the scrapped streets evaporate with the snap of the fingers while the un-scrapped streets remain frozen as ice. I am in the truck in bright sunlight, warmed by it, and in front of me is a towering wall of gray with no top visible. Today again as yesterday that same wall of weather is observable advancing on the city from the West, obscuring the mountains and everything between right up to where it doesn't and the buildings are clear. There is no fading out area at all. Solid gray wall. And cold. I could actually see the cold coming right at me while I'm sitting fat and happy in the bright warming sun.
There should be a rainbow or something equally extraordinary for a thing like that.
The traffic was frenetic all day. All parking taken. Drivers running right up your tailpipe. Everyone moving, eager to do something, move somewhere, get things done quickly, but also eager to get out of the cold fast as possible.
East is top. Because that is how it is in my head when I'm going there.
Bottom left corner to top right corner. From Art Museum to in between Cheesman Park and Denver Country Club. I did not realize how posh that area is until I saw it from Google Earth. I've been in there a million times and had no idea the alleys between properties are doubled like that to the right. No wait! Those are streets. I did know that.
There is parking across the alley, obscured by trees, so shaded in summer. They moved a few years ago, up a bit, so different layout all around now. The additional parking surprised me. I was expecting to have to park on the street.
Oliver's has an extremely loyal fan base. If you type "oliver's denver" Google Earth takes you directly there.
Chili with meat, bacon, black-eye peas, fruit and spices with lots of turmeric
The banana and apple are rolled uncooked into the chili as if it were a sauce. The idea started out as beans with banana, then I thought it would be good if the banana were starchy like a plantain but I do not have a plantain around here right now so I used a sweet banana instead and switched to potato for the starch. I also wanted to use up about 1/3 LB of lean ground chuck.
The beans need fat and unction and help with flavor, and the ground chuck is too lean, so the fat and flavor of bacon is included and only the finest will do. This is the house brand around these parts. It is similar to Tesco.
See? I just told a joke. That is cheapest bacon available.
So there is the fat rendered from the bacon and that fat is used to start off an assortment of seasonings. I scanned the spice cabinets for things that I know will work and for things that I do not usually use and for things I might miss.
* coriander
* cumin
* cinnamon
* chile flakes
* black pepper
* salt
* nutmeg
* turmeric added last
Let's just call it a curry.
* brown sugar
* one level tablespoon flour
* onion
* garlic
* dry sherry
* water
* small tin diced tomato
* 1/3 LB ground chuck
* one large Russet potato from the great state of Idaho.
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