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Mild, tasty chili---with or without meat---something for everyone!
Posted by SweetViolet • 6/13/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: chili, chili con carne, cooking, food, recipes, vegetarian, vegetarian chili
Of the many things I cook for him, my husband likes my chili best. It is mild...won't raise a sweat on the tenderest tongue...but tasty enough to appeal to a man who grew up eating curry for almost every meal.
The recipe comes with a list of variations, and it's easy to prepare, both on the kitchen stove or outdoors on a camp out, barbeque, or picnic. There is even a "man" variation using beer!
Give it a peek and see what you think: svcooks.blogspot.com/2009/06/mild-marvelous-chili-con-carne.html
User Comments
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Looks good to me, love the man version with beer! -
The beer actually adds an additional richness...a depth...to the flavour. You could do a variation on the variation...try different kinds of beer to see if it makes a difference in the taste!
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Yum! Sounds good!-
It is! Give it a try!
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Looks like we'll have some chili this weekend
I'll let you know how it turns out.
Thanks SV-
Oh, please do! It's cheap, filling, tasty...a great way to fill up the family without emptying out the pocketbook!
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SV
Are there any easy traditional South African recipes that you prepare?-
Not really, unless you count the braai (pronounced "bry"). South Africans are big meat eaters and love to braai, which is pretty much equivalent to an American bbq.
Outside of the braai, I haven't found any traditional South African foods that I enjoy. Bobotie is a casserole that combines fruit with meat and other ingredients...I don't like it. South Africans use a lot of white sauce in their dishes...lasagne, for example, is not layered with cheese but with white sauce...I detest white sauce. Melktert is a custard pie type of dessert...it lacks flavour. South Africans put sauce on their steaks...mostly white sauce with something in it like a sprinkling of cheese or a few mushrooms bits. The favourite vegetables here are creamed spinach and mashed butternut squash...veggies which tie for first place on my "most hated vegetables" list.
My husband is ethnically Indian, so I have learned his mother's curry (which is on the blog), but mostly we get Indian food from a local takeaway shop owned by a woman from a place near his hometown.
Fortunately, South Africa is a very cosmopolitan place and most of the food in the markets and restaurant is familiar to Americans and Europeans alike. Traditional dishes seldom even show up on menus, so my opportunity to try them is fairly limited.
But we DO like to braai!
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I have a chili recipe on my blog too. My coworker and I created the recipe for a chili cook-off last February. I noticed you used beer in your recipe too. I love cooking with beer. It adds such a great flavor to meat. My recipe was cobbled together with different elements from different recipes. The end result was a really rich, medium spicy chili that was super hearty. We didn't win the cook-off, but ours was the first chili to "sell out" because people kept going back for seconds and thirds. They kept coming up to me and saying how good it was. The winning chili wasn't nearly as popular as ours.
studio307.blogspot.com/2009/01/its-cold-outside-lets-eat-chili.html-
Try adding a spoonful of garam masala to the chili. It is a spice mix that contains cloves and it adds a fabulous dimension and complexity to the taste!
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Ooh, next time I will try that.
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Thanks SV? I have friends from other parts of Africa, like Kenya and Nigeria and the spices in their dishes seem equivalent to the Indian curry dishes.
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South Africa has a large Indian population, descendants of the indentured workers who came here in the 19th and early 20th century to work the cane fields. These people live largely in Durban and came from the Madras (now Chennai) area of Tamil Naidu.
Earlier than the Indian workers were those who came to be called the Cape Malay. These were from what was then called Dutch Indonesia and many of them were slaves. Both cultures have a tradition of spicy foods and the Dutch did a considerable amount of spice trading. Bobotie, as I mentioned above, is a highly spiced dish.
The local black people seem to like spicy foods, especially those with a lot of chili in them. My maid, who is Xhosa, is delighted when we have leftover curry that she can have for lunch. Even her children eat spicy food! I have a couple of South African cookbooks...if there is something specific you'd like, I'll be happy to see if I can find a recipe for you.
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