Fired Chili

I am tempted to not even share this recipe. It came out so good that some iteration of it will likely compete in this Fall's Chomp and Stomp in Cabbagetown. However, I promised my sister that I would write a chili recipe in honor of her 30th birthday this month. Amy loves chili, though I'm not sure she'll love this chili. I think she once told me that I put corn in my chili just to spite her. Regardless, happy birthday Amy, here's some fired chili for you.  Why is this chili fired, you may be wondering. Did it suck at its job? Keep reading and you'll find out. For those few readers out there who may actually try to recreate this, good luck. I was intentionally vague in describing the spices that went into this baby.

You'll need: about 4 poblano peppers, 2 green bell peppers, 2 ears of corn, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 large onion, 3 chipotle peppers in adobo, a pound or so of ground meat of your choosing, 2 cans of black beans, 2 cans of fire roasted diced tomatoes, 1 can of tomato sauce, 1 ale style beer and unnamed spices.

To start, pour yourself a beer. You're going to be cooking with it, might as well have one while you're at it. If you're lucky like me, you stole a glass with puppies on it from your favorite dive bar while you were out drinking to celebrate your birthday several months ago. If you're smart like me, you keep this glass in the freezer so its nice and cold for any tasty beers you decide to have. Puppies!

This inspiration for this fired chili was that I really wanted to fire roast something on my stove. Why have a continuous grate, 5-burner gas cook top of you're just going to cook everything in pots and pans? To get the peppers ready for fire roasting, I sliced all the bell and poblano peppers in half, removing seeds and stems. I also husked the corn.

I neatly arranged the peppers and corn on the cook top, being sure that all were skin side down. As you can tell from this picture I'm not very good with the camera but I assure you that the long, non-descript lightly colored things in the middle are truly ears of corn.

I lit the burners on high heat and carefully watched and smelled the veggies cook. Depending on how dry the veggies are, you'll hear plenty of popping noises as the water is cooked off. Be sure to rotate the corn and check the peppers often. I found the bell peppers cooked much more slowly than the poblanos, so you may have to move them around. You may find that they will smell a bit burned, but that's what we're going for. Turn on an above the stove fan if you have one or open a window if the burning smell gets to you.

Pull the peppers and corn off the heat once they are charred. I didn't completely blacken the peppers, but you could if you like. Set these aside to cool.  If you don't have a gas stove, you can use a gas grill. If you don't have a gas grill, I believe you can use the broiler in your oven. Since I have both a gas stove and a gas grill, I just use those so I'm not certain about the broiler.

While the fired veggies are cooling, mince 2 cloves of garlic and dice one onion.  Set these aside in a bowl.

Then, mince three chipotle peppers from a jar of chipotles in adobo.  I broke out a trusty latex gloves to mince these since I didn't want an unfortunate hot pepper in the eye incident. Set this aside.

By now the fired veggies should be cooked.  Cut the corn off the cob with a small sharp knife, or even a large dull one, the corn should come off pretty easily.  I know there are special tools sold for removing corn from the cob, but they're pretty useless provided you own a knife. 

Remove the char from about half the peppers by rinsing them under cold water. Dice up all the peppers and set aside with the corn.

Heat a large soup pot over medium heat and throw in a little extra virgin olive oil.  When all is hot, throw in your ground meat, I used turkey, onions, garlic and half of the minced chipotle peppers.  I also added other spices that shall remain nameless.  Cook this until the meat is done, crumbling it along the way, about 10 minutes.

Next add the corn and pepper mix. Stirring to mix.  Cook for about 5 minutes.

R

Rinse and drain the black beans and add those in too. Throw in the fire roasted diced tomatoes while you're at it.

Try not to drop some black bean rinse water on the floor while transferring them from the sink to the stove. But if you do, hopefully you're trusty puppy clean-up tool will be around to help clean the mess.

Now, pour in the beer.  I went with a Kona Fire Rock Ale to keep with the fired theme. I also threw in the small can of tomato sauce because the chili looked like it needed more liquid.

Increase the heat to bring this to a boil, then reduce the heat to let it simmer for about 30 minutes.  About 15 minutes into my simmering, Brian came home and I let him spice this up a bit more with spices that shall remain nameless. Enjoy this gem topped with some cheddar cheese if you'd like. It was mighty tasty.

A side note for my Atlanta peeps - I do fully intend to enter this in the amateur competition at Chomp and Stomp. To do so, there will be at least one more practice round to perfect the recipe, maybe more. If you're interested in taste testing, let me know as there shall be a Casa Blivmore chili party sometime in the coming months.