olive oil in chile? I swear ’fore FSM, lambert …

here’s one, and you don’t need any olive oil. Range meat will do fine (rabbit, venison, cabrito, mutton — ’ware that, as you’ll have to skim the grease two or three times —stew beef if you can get it) but if you put the beans in the cookpot before you serve it at the table, FSM help you, whatever you’re eating won’t be chile.

From the research library of the Institute of Texan Cultures comes this link with the past - a Chili Queen recipe (slightly updated for shopping convenience):
Original San Antonio Chili

2 pounds beef shoulder, cut into ½-inch cubes
1 pound pork shoulder, cut into ½-inch cubes
¼ cup suet
¼ cup pork fat
3 medium-sized onions, chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 quart water
4 ancho chiles
1 serrano chile
6 dried red chiles
1 tablespoon comino seeds, freshly ground
2 tablespoons Mexican oregano
Salt to taste

Place lightly floured beef and pork cubes in with suet and pork fat in heavy chili pot and cook quickly, stirring often. Add onions and garlic and cook until they are tender and limp. Add water to mixture and simmer slowly while preparing chiles. Remove stems and seeds from chiles and chop very finely. Grind chiles in molcajete and add oregano with salt to mixture. Simmer another 2 hours. Remove suet casing and skim off some fat. Never cook frijoles with chiles and meat. Serve as separate dish.

(after the San Antonio health department ran the chili queens out of Military Plaza in 1937, one newspaper wrote:)
The hearty smell of mesquite smoke mingling with the spicy aroma of chiles is gone. Gone, too, are the gaily painted carts and the fancy costumes and flowers of the Chili Queens. But before their passing, chili had become somewhat of a national dish.

More receipts here.

With his blood pressure running high you want he should eat pork fat? A side of Chili or Chilicide?

My vegetarian recipe changes every time I make it, but it goes a bit like this (in no particular order):

Garlic cloves
Onions (sweet or yellow)
Crushed tomatoes
Fresh tomatoes
Bell pepper
Mushrooms (yes, mushrooms)
Pinto beans
Kidney beans
Soy/fake ground meat (optional)
Cilantro
Parsley
Salt—to taste
Pepper—to taste
Cumin—to taste
Cayenne—to taste
Tabasco/Cholula—to taste
One (or thereabouts) tablespoon sugar
Tequila (Reposado, or whatever)
A really cold Tecate or Pacifico

You can use Canola oil instead of olive oil—it costs less than half the price of olive oil at the Trader Joe’s I go to.

In a pan heat up the oil, add garlic and diced onions…mmm, that smells good. Have a taste of the tequila. Get those beans going in another pot above a medium flame, and add the crushed tomatoes. Toss in diced bell pepper, truly and finely diced cilantro and parsley into the frying pan (add more oil if necessary), then empty that into the bean pot. Now cook up some more garlic, you big chicken, and add a little more onion while you’re at it, then add the diced mushrooms, then add them to the pot. If you want to add the fake meat (again, Trader Joe’s has an inexpensive brand that actually tastes good) into the pan, now is the time. Mix it in with all that garlic and onion, for best results. Put that into the pot. Next,pan fry some fresh tomatoes and toss them into the pot. Take another taste of the tequila and follow that with a sip of the beer. Add some of the beer to the chili. Next add salt, pepper, cayenne, tabasco/cholula to the bean pot, along with the sugar (raw, baby, raw). Stir occasionally. Smoke a joint (if you must) and share it with a friend (if you can).

Have some fresh, uncooked onions for topping when you serve it up. Grated cheese on top is a nice addition (not too much, you don’t need the cholesterol). This will taste delicious right away, but put the rest in the fridge for two days. It will taste teh awesome with a little aging (just like us bloggers).

Think about not supporting slaughterhouses and all that that entails (Lb: iirc you said you stopped eating meat?). Eat a veg chili that came from the earth and not from a bloody knife. Food, like everything else, is political.

More vegetarian recipes here.

++++

Whole Foods’ “365” imprint.. the Olive Oil is reasonably priced, at least around here in Philly, and it’s damn fine. Love it on bread. Hmmmm…

Better than butter, too, I would think.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

… and thanx, mjs, for the intuitive veggie chile one. Now are you talkin’ dry TVP or some seitan, or what? Gotta break it down for us slow pokes….

day, lb. i hoard homemade things, but it’s time to start stocking away some other stuff and i need to reshuffle some shelving and storage space to do so. hmmm…there might be a post in there.

For me, olive oil had to be an acquired taste. I gave up all other oils and butter and now use it exclusively. Perhaps as a result of that change in my diet some advancing blood pressure issues of mine have disappeared.

When using olive oil for frying you just have to be careful it does not smoke. I’ve read that it is unhealthy to consume if it burns.

MJS might be right that canola oil has all the benefits of olive oil at half the price. I have read that the two oils have similar qualities. Canola oil does have a lighter taste that I prefer. My advice is to damn the cost - only buy monounsaturated oil.

I like variations of this recipe. I usually substitute ground turkey for the ground beef and use low-sodium beef or chicken stock to make it healthier. The recipe calls for a package of the Red Lion chili spice mix (which is really good), but you can substitute your favorite chili spice mix for it.

if you are determined to make a good vegetarian chili do this:

soak 1 lb dark red kidney beans overnight, drain, and cook in fresh water with 1/2 tsp liquid smoke seasoning, 1 chopped seeded bell pepper, 1 chopped small white onion, 4 cloves minced garlic, and 15.5 ounces crushed fire-roasted tomatoes.

Meanwhile:
bring 40 ounces by weight of clean cold water to a low boil in a heavy pan.
stir in a tablespoon of chipotle powder
stir in a tablespoon of sweet paprika
stir in a teaspoon of cayenne
stir in a teaspoon of comino
stir in a half teaspoon of salt
stir in six ounces of tomato sauce, unsalted
cook ten minutes, then:
add two tablespoons of canola oil
add two finely chopped red onions
add one finely chopped sweet yellow onion
add three finely chopped seeded poblano peppers
add 1/2 oz by weight chile petines
add six peeled seeded rough-chopped tomatoes
add two cloves minced garlic
boil five minutes. reduce heat to a simmer and cook until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon
taste for seasonings and add salt and black pepper to taste
serve in a bowl with crackers or cornbread, with the beans on the side; or serve over rice, with beans on the side.

to this you can add ground white turkey, shredded leftover chicken, or perhaps best of all, shredded leftover roast anything (i’d be careful with fish, sometimes that goes bitter during reheating).

keeps sealed in the fridge for up to a week.
takes about 3 hours to make but the simmering is what creates the flavor you want.

I use olive oil, but I grew up in Italy. Olive oil is good for you. But I don’t put beans in the chili, if that’s any redemption.

- Dice one medium yellow onion and saute’ in enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pot. Add 1-2 cloves chopped garlic if you’re feeling zesty.

- If you have 2 fresh green jalapeno peppers (the ones most commonly found in supermarkets), slice them in half, remove the seeds and chop into small dice. Add these to the onions and saute’.

- Sprinkle the sauteeing onions with 1-2 tbsp cumin powder, 1 tsp cayenne powder.

- For meat I like to take a cheap steak and cut it into small cubes after trimming off the fat. Add this to the onions once they’re soft and translucent.

- Add pepper and salt to taste.

- Cook the meat so it is just past looking raw but not cooked all the way through.

- Add a large can of peeled tomatoes.

- If you have dried chiles you can add some now. Dried Ancho chilies are very mild but have a nice smoky flavor.

- Cook on low heat for 30-45 minutes. Serve over canned kidney beans.

Shopping tip: Whitey supermarkets will rape you for spices. You can get better quality spices (even things like black peppercorns) at ridiculously low prices at any ethnic grocery store.