I think people who make "chili" with ground meat and tomato products are worse than people who put beans in it.

If beans is the difference between "chili" and spaghetti sauce, you know they done fucked up.

More arfcom millionaires, acting like chunks of meat are diamonds.  I was once broke, but now I could afford to make chili out of t-bones and prime rib if I wanted to, but that would be stupid.

When I make my chili, I make 6 to 8 gallons at a time, in a huge pot, because I like to share it with a lot of people and freeze the leftovers in gallon freezer bags.  It typically has 2 pounds of meat per gallon, both ground venison and backstrap cut into small pieces.

If you didn't get enough meat in your first bowl (because of the beans), don't be a pussy, have a second bowl, I won't mind.

On a side note, one of my favorite things about chili cook-offs at work, is the different varieties of cornbread that people bring.  Chili and cornbread (probably also a "poors food") is heaven to me.

Post up your ingredients list Ohio man. If that list for a 6-8 gallon batch includes 3-4 gallons of tomatoes, an equal poundage of beans your point means very little.

If you want some beans with your chili go ahead - ON THE SIDE.

This was how they were served until some lazy shit decided not to clean two pots.

There are no beans IN chili. Accept it. You'll live a better life.

Attached File

I never knew beans was an issue until GD.  Glad I know that some people don't know how to cook chili as it will lessen the potential surprise one day

chili a "culinary masterpiece", nonsense.

Damn it, now I want chili.

How ARFCOM "Chili - Beans Vs. No Bean" threads eventually turn out -

Beans are perfectly fine but they do not belong in chili.

Not even close, on the tomatoes and beans.  A significant percentage of the volume is peppers that are canned in tomato sauce, but they are about 80% peppers / 20% tomato sauce.  Basically, I stuff canning jars with peppers till I can't fit anymore, then I dump in hot tomato sauce to fill the gaps between peppers, then pressure can.  The canned peppers (a lot of banana and jalapenos, but sometimes Hungarian wax and other kinds) mostly disintegrate over the course of the long cooking of the chili, becoming the "thick" part of the sauce.  I'll add commercially canned jalapeños, as they tend to hold together more, with their flavor and heat going into the sauce and meat, leaving a little bit behind when you bite into them.  I heat it up with dried / ground red chiles and habaneros, from the garden.  So, the typical batch of chili is about 3/4 meat, the juice from the meat (I don't dump it off) peppers and the tomato sauce the peppers are canned in.  The rest is beans, onions and a little bit of corn, because I like the texture.  The way it looks is that if my pot is 8 gallons (filled to the top), and I'm making six gallons (3/4 full), it's more than half full with the base (meat, the juice from the meat, peppers, the tomato sauce the peppers were canned in) before I start adding anything else.  Sometimes, I have to add some water at this stage, because it's too thick, and it's going to have a long time to cook.  A lot of those liquids are going to evaporate by the time it's done.

It's not hard to have a spoonful that is nothing but meat, peppers and the sauce.  If I'm trying to be low carb, sometimes I'll make a side batch with even less beans and no corn.  It's OK, but I don't like it as much.  I like how the beans absorb the different flavors and transform them.  The meat does also, but in a different way.  To me, that's the rich essence of chili... bringing all of these different flavors together, and letting them mix together for a long time.  When I'm making a huge batch, it takes me a couple hours to brown all of the meat and get all of the ingredients together, then it stays on the stove for an additional one to two days, on the lowest heat (turning it off when I'm not around to stir it).  The flavor changes over time, getting richer and more complex.  You don't taste distinct flavors anymore, but rather a symphony of flavor, without any solos.

Another thing I do that is controversial, is that after I've heated it up with the pepper flakes, I add sugar.  When you put a spoonful in your mouth, you taste the sweetness first (a different part of your tongue), then the heat of the peppers hits other parts of the tongue.  I like that complexity.  The effect is that at the start of the bowl, someone new to it might not even realize that it's relatively spicy, but by the time they have finished, they might be sweating a little and reaching for some milk to cool off.  Sometimes I'll sub-divide the chili into two batches after most of the ingredients are in, with one hotter (more pepper flakes) than the other.  My dad liked the taste of the spicy stuff, but his old guts suffered too much from it, so I'd give him the less spicy batch to take home.

What I really enjoy about sharing my chili is that every spoonful is the product of my sweat and love with the bounty of the land I live on.  There are few other dishes that allow for this.

Said by someone who hasn't tasted my wife's chili...