Tag: chili

So tart-on wanted me to make her enchiladas, out of Mexicans, for eating. Not having any idea how to make them, I read four or five recipes online for common ingredients (this is how I research all recipes), then promptly forgot everything I read and just started cooking.

I started with some canola oil and about four cloves of garlic, minced. To this I added about two tablespoons of ground chiles (dried red, ancho, and california pods), paprika, chili powder (a lot), cumin, and onion powder. After this started to smell like enchiladas, I browned two chicken thighs on both sides, then poured in two cups of chicken broth and put on the cover for about fifteen minutes (on medium high).

After the chicken was cooked, I shredded it with a fork while the chicken broth reduced on high. Then I pulled the tortillas out of the oven (what? Where did the tortillas come from? I forgot to mention, I put some in the oven at 170 so they wouldn't break when I tried to roll them) and rolled them around the chicken before I put them in a square glass baking dish.

By the time I filled the dish and set the oven for 350 degrees, the chicken broth was reduced to the point where I could start making a sauce. I added two cans of tomato sauce, some garlic powder, some more chili powder, some dried parsley, about two tablespoons of cocoa powder (heck yes), and a little pepper. The chicken broth was salty enough so that I didn't need to add any salt.

After the sauce all came together, I poured it into the baking dish, covered the top with cheddar, and put it into the oven for half an hour. This is awesome. Eat enchiladas. Every day, until you die.

Ingredients:

• 1 pkg of stew meat, browned.
• 2 california chile pods
• 6-10 small red peppers.
• 2 pasilla (dried ancho) chile pods.
• 6-10 small arbol chili pods.
• 3 jalapenos
• 1 can tomato sauce
• white pepper, to taste
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• garlic salt
• onion powder
• celery seed
• cumin
• 2 cans beef consomme
• 1 can chicken broth
• 1 bottle newcastle
• 1 cup ground tortilla strips

And set yourself on fire you shall. Particularly after eating this atrocity I invented last night.

Software:
1/2 lb. Ground Beef
1/2 yellow onion, diced.
1 med. Red Bell Pepper diced (this is a chile too, btw)
3 Habanero Chiles diced fine (fresh)
3 Thai Chiles diced fine (fresh)
1 Random Chile diced fine (Seriously. I bought a fresh "Hungarian" Chile from Vons. 
                                       Who the hell knows what subspecies of capsicum it is.)
2 Jalapenos diced fine (fresh)
3 tsp. Cayenne Chile (powder)
4 tsp. Naga Jolokia Chile (powder)
1 can Chipotles in Adobo (only use 5 of the chiles or so, diced)
1 14.5oz can Ranch Style beans
5 tsp. chili powder (I use homemade, store bought is sawdust)
1 cup beer (I used Peroni, because thats what I had)
Garlic Salt
Salt and Pepper

1. Brown the ground beef in a skillet, once browned, throw in onion and bell pepper. Season with Garlic Salt and Pepper to taste.
2. Done! (just kidding.)
3. Or am I?
4. No, I am. Drain the fat from the skillet. Throw in all diced chiles except the Chipotles. Soften.
5. In a soup pot, stock pot, pot of some kind, combine meat mixture, and rest of the ingredients.
6. Cook until it tastes good. Or until you can't taste anything because the chiles have beaten your
    tastebuds into submission/mass suicide.

On a side note: I wish the preview pane hadn't gone away, but I do like the new post editor Tele.

Disclaimer: The below contains cynicism. If you think this is a kind of disease, I suggest you go beat yourself over the head with an iron.

It was Indian night, and I've never so much as had a curry.

Nevertheless, I had a great evil plan in the works: I was going to cook Indian food pretty much the same way as I cook all food, by sort of looking at a recipe on the internet and then adapting it for my own evil purposes. I was going to do this because I had zero idea what kind of spices I was going to be using, what the end result was supposed to be, and whether or not what I cooked could be considered as poison in the right jurisdictions.

The recipe starts with a cup of masoor daal, which the internet tells me is some magical, rare variety of lentil. Since I wasn't about to go on a Fancy Steve style treasure hunt just to find a lentil that probably tastes exactly the same as normal lentils, I used mealworms. Okay. Fine. I used lentils. But if the original dish was supposed to be all squirmy, everybody was going to be totally disappointed.

The instructions were to wash the lentils. I sighed heavily and hoped somebody would notice how I was pretty much martyring myself just so I could cook food invented by people who don't even eat prime rib. Unfortunately, there really wasn't anybody paying attention to me, not even me, so I finally gave up and washed the lentils. The tremendous sacrifices I make for these parties, right?

The next instructions from the supreme commander, aka The Interwebtubes, was to mix the lentils with water, cooking oil, turmeric, red chili powder, salt, onion, and tomato in some sort of pot. Whoa. That's a lot to process all at once. I'd be posting the amount of the ingredients here, but I wasn't really paying attention anyways. I finely chopped a massive onion and three tomatoes (I was making a triple-size recipe, for the gathering) and added these to the pot. Turmeric? I had that, because everything indian ever apparently needs it. For those of you wondering, it tastes yellow. The mexitexans probably say it tastes amarillo, which is a gay Texan way to say yellow. And what's this "red chili powder"? I judiciously decided this meant both red pepper and chili powder, both of which I have, because I am a man. So I dumped a lot of those in there.

Basically, after that point, I let everything cook for an hour and a half. Then I went and played video games. When the smoke alarm went off, I looked for a save point, saved my totally awesome robot ninja, and then went back to the kitchen. I was supposed to melt some ghee, which is Indian for "butter of the gods". I am not kidding. It smelled like delicious, and it comes in what looks like a Folger's can. After it was melted, I threw in some cumin seeds ("Hiss," said the seeds). In went a gallon of garlic and a metric buttload of dried chilies, which I crushed in my hands like beer cans. After everything smelled fried enough, I threw it into the lentils, mixed them all up, and was done with it.

I should mention that I was supposed to add something called asafoetida, which kills unborn babies, smells horrible, and attracts wolves. Since I know some unborn babies and not many wolves, I was going to add it, but that would have involved wandering around the smelly part of the international market, so I refrained. Instead I added saffron, which is expensive, in the hopes that it would make all the food taste like magic. Instead, it made everything smell like flowers.

Okay, I gave it a taste. But after I spit that out and gargled with bleach, I figured everything was alright. I put it in a bowl, drove over to Fancy's, and pre-dialed the ambulance. 

Recently, I had someone email and ask, why do you call yourself a masochist? Do you like pain? And the answer is... "Yes. I love pain. The pain that is imparted by our friend Wilbur Scoville". (Actually, all that guff about someone actually emailing me is just a shameless pretense to bring up the Scoville scale.)

The Scoville scale measures how much burny you're going to get on your tongue from eating said chile. Yes burny is a word! Why not?

Since I love me some code tags, I'm going to put our version of the Scoville scale in them. Take that, Web 2.0!

15,000,000–17,000,000 Pure capsaicin
9,100,000             Nordihydrocapsaicin
2,000,000–5,300,000     Standard U.S. Grade pepper spray
855,000–1,041,427   Naga Jolokia 
350,000–577,000         Red Savina Habanero
100,000–350,000         Habanero chili, Scotch Bonnet
100,000–200,000         Rocoto, Jamaican Hot Pepper, African Birdseye
50,000–100,000      Thai Pepper, Malagueta Pepper, Chiltepin Pepper, Pequin Pepper
30,000–50,000       Cayenne Pepper, Ají pepper, Tabasco pepper
10,000–23,000       Serrano Pepper
7,000–8,000             Tabasco Sauce (Habanero)
5,000–10,000        Wax Pepper
4,500–5,000         New Mexican varieties of Anaheim pepper
2,500–8,000         Jalapeño Pepper
2,500–5,000         Tabasco Sauce (Tabasco pepper) 
1,500–2,500         Rocotillo Pepper, Sriracha
1,000–1,500         Poblano Pepper, Texas Pete sauce
600–800         Jalapeno Tabasco sauce
500–2500        Anaheim pepper
100–500         Pimento, Pepperoncini
0               No heat, Bell pepper

Scale courtesy of Wikipedia

Now, anyone who's never heard of the Scoville scale is wondering what the heck those numbers are up there. Well, basically thats the rating that Wilbur assigned each of the corresponding chiles using the Scoville Organoleptic Test. You'll never believe me if I tell you what the Organoleptic Test consisted of. Ready? Here it is. That's right, good old fashioned human test subjects. Ahh. The good old days. What peppers have I tried?

Everything on there with the exception of the Ají and the Naga Jolokia. I can't find them anywhere. But now I'm seriously considering spraying some pepper spray on my pizza at some point in the future.

I wanted to have a sauce ready so I could make burritos, enchiladas, or chili colorado at a moments' notice, so here's what I did:

1. Got one of those $2 bags of large dried red chiles. The ones I tried tonight were Californian; we've also got some New Mexican ones on backup.

2. Removed just the stems and tossed them into a blender (I like hot sauces). Blended them into a fine powder (break them in half and blend them in phases).

3. Added all my powder to a can of diced tomatoes and half a clove of garlic (peeled). Back to the blender, to make a thick slurry.

4. Melted some butter over the stove (1 stick), added some salt, onion powder, and cornstarch.

5. Poured the mixture on top, cut heat, added chicken broth and a little soy sauce, and whisked furiously to integrate. Added more cornstarch at this phase.

I ended up with a dark red, slightly hot paste. I can't wait for those enchiladas.

Maybe it's my genes; maybe it's because I'm not Jewish; or maybe it's just because I'm working my way up to cannibalism. Either way, nothing goes with pork chops like hot sauce.

Now, this doesn't mean your dish HAS to be spicy (unless it's meant for my consumption). Hot sauce comes in two basic varieties- the thick kind you either brush onto food or add in small dabs, and the watery Louisiana style hot sauce which is less about heat and more about flavor. Obviously, I stock both and use the latter for most of my cooking.

Tonight, I took some pork chops (hooray for sales!) and treated both sides with a small amount of hot sauce, cayenne, garlic pepper, and salt. (Other potential additions are: minced garlic, crushed red pepper, chili powder, small amounts of ginger, cumin, or paprika). After melting down a small amount of shortening, I cooked it for about seven minutes per side (until the center was white); had I not been so hungry, I'd have given it the sear treatment before the cooking on medium.

Seeing as how I used about a teaspoon of each ingredient, the taste wasn't as hot as previous variations; instead, the hot sauce imparted its own fresh-vegetables taste that took it out of standard weak-chops fare and placed it somewhere in the upper troposphere.

Not my best shot at this one, by far; but certainly quick, easy, and worth eating on a budget. Viva le hobo!