Currently cooking from The Best Simple Recipes from Cooks Illustrated
This is what happens when I take a break from cooking — Bryan steps in and knocks out a winner. Maybe I should take a break more often . . .
I warily approached the preparation of Sunday’s dinner. I had offered to cook in a rare show of generosity to my wife. Let’s face it: When one person kinda sorta enjoys something, and another person oh-my-goodness loves loves loves it, the person who loves it is going to do it more often. Plus, on weeknights I’m not home until 6 p.m., and neither of us wants to eat at 7:30 or 8, so dinner duties have fallen heavily on my wife. That doesn’t mean I feel no guilt about it.
The beef chili dinner from The Best Simple Recipes was a great choice. It truly is a simple recipe, not just in preparation, but in the ingredient list. It’s got meat! Each of the other ingredients (an onion, beans, cumin, chili powder, garlic and just a touch of sugar) serves a specific flavor purpose. Nothing is added unnecessarily.
It’s a “mix together and stir” recipe, with two exceptions. The first exception is to cook the meat (hamburger in this case) and onion for a few minutes before mixing everything else in. That’s a no-brainer, unless you like mad cow disease.
The second exception is Cooks Illustrated’s trick to pulling this recipe off in 30 minutes instead of two hours. Puree half of the beans and tomatoes before adding them to the meat and onions. The puree allows the chili to be thick without adding hours of cooking time.
Top it with cheese and sour cream, and you’re done in a half hour to 45 minutes. Trista made cornbread to go with it, and I will let her add her own thoughts on that. (Hint: It was delicious.)
The chili itself is quite good. We enjoyed two dinners each from it, so it’s certainly fit to be eaten as is. But I see this recipe as merely the starting point. The paucity and sheer efficiency of ingredients provide lots of room to customize this to your tastes. Make it hotter, make it thicker, add black beans, use steak or chicken instead of hamburger – the list goes on. Will we cook this again? Yes, but it probably won’t be the same way twice.
My wife, bless her heart, mostly stayed away from the kitchen. I did detect once that a burner had been adjusted slightly, but she insists that she didn’t touch it, blaming it instead upon a “wascawy wabbit.” I’m not sure if I should believe her, but since she is the Best! Wife! Ever!, I choose to take her at her word.
Wow! Way to go Bryan! I had no idea that two Chefs had hooked up out there. Pretty cool. I like the make-it-quick part. I might try to incorporate this idea to my favorite chili recipe. (Onion-less one.)
Was it southern cornbread or northern cake? LOL