Snacking State-by-State: Texas II - Beans? We don't need no stinkin' beans!

Texas chili is quite distinct from other chilis in that it is missing one big thing: beans.  Ask any Texan if they put beans in their chili, and they might shake their heads or just laugh.  So my question: if you're a vegetarian in Texas, do you just not eat chili at all?

Official Name: State of Texas
State Nickname: The Lone Star State, The Republic of Texas
Admission to the US: December 29, 1845 (#28)
Capital: Austin (4th largest)
Other Important Cities: Houston (largest), San Antonio (2nd largest), Dallas (3rd largest), El Paso (6th largest),
Region: South, Southwest; West South Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Cornbread & BBQ; Chile Pepper; Gumbo; Bison
Bordered by: Oklahoma (north), Arkansas (northeast), Louisiana (east), Gulf of Mexico (southeast), Tamaulipas, Nuevo León & Coahuila (Mexico) and the Río Grande (south), Chihuahua (Mexico) (southwest), New Mexico (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: cast iron dutch oven (cooking implement - not edible, of course, but used for cooking), chili (dish), chiltepín (native pepper), Guadalupe bass (fish), jalapeño (pepper), longhorn (large mammal), pan de campo (bread), pecan (tree and health nut), prickly pear cactus (plant - for the pads and the fruit), sopaipilla and strudel (pastries), sweet onion (vegetable), Texas purple sage (native shrub), Texas red grapefruit (fruit). tortilla chips and salsa (snack)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: Where to begin?  Texas-style barbecue (specifically beef and beef brisket), Texas chili, chicken fried steak, Mexican (specifically Northern Mexican) foods, Tex-Mex foods (including migas, chile con carne and sopaipilla)

The one common thread running through all Texas chilis is the lack of beans.  Note: you do not put beans in a Texas chili.  If you do, it ain't Texas chili.  Oh sure, it may be some kind of chili (check out Cincinnati's chili, for example, which I made a while back when I looked at Ohio.  Sure the beans aren't cooked into the chili, but it winds up on the plate eventually).  Non-Texan Shannon Sliter Satterwhite writes for Southern Living Magazine [2005] about how she grew up yearning for a delicious chili that just didn't have so many beans, and found it in Texas with its "well-seasoned stew with chunks of tender beef in every bite - a style of chili that Texans have been making for generations" [Sliter Satterwhite 2005].  She further talks about the history of Texas chili, which has its origins in northern Mexico's chile con carne:

The granddaddy of this Tex-Mex dish, chili con carne, is thought to have originated in the 1800s along the Texas cattle trails. Range cooks would commonly prepare a pot of fresh beef and wild-grown seasonings for the cowhands. Before long, the popularity of this spicy stew spread like cheese on a hot burrito throughout the trail towns. It's even said that Frank and Jesse James would stop to eat a bowl before pulling their next bank job.  [Sliter Satterwhite 2005]

I also opted for chunks of beef over ground beef, which I thought would turn out much nicer.  The recipe I used comes to us from "Dr. Dan" who writes the 101 Cooking for Two blog.  As he notes, this is "a spiced up version" [Dan 2012] of his previous Texas chili - as he puts it, a 7 out of 10 on the spiciness scale.  It was a good level of spicy for me.

The Recipe: Texas Chili

Dr. Dan's Texas chili consists of the following:

* chuck roast (I bought this on sale at Wegman's for about $4 per lb, and cut it up myself)
* canned tomatoes (the recipe specifically calls for the canned stuff, which is probably better than most of the tomatoes you'll find in the produce department anyway)
* two each serrano, poblano & jalapeño chile peppers (Dr. Dan calls for three different types of chile which will give this chili a nice heat and complexity.  None of these should cost more than a few dimes at most)
* beef broth (about $1.49 a can)
* onion (picked one up at Wegman's cheap)
* garlic (had it)
* chili powder (of course, just as Texas chili must not have beans, it probably must have chili powder.  I'm not just about out of the stuff)
* cumin, oregano, salt & pepper (had it all)
I also added hot sauce, since I wanted a hotter chili than Dr. Dan was prescribing.

Just for the hell of it, I roasted the poblanos.  Yes, I have to clean my oven top.

Chop (and if you don't like them, seed) your chiles.

The finer you chop those chiles, onions and garlic cloves the better, I think.

Probably best not to chop the beef too fine though.  Just chunk it.

Mix your meat, chiles and vegetables together in a crock pot.

Add the broth...

...and the spices.

Yes, I added extra heat.

Turn on the slow cooker and let your chili slow cook on low for eight hours.

My chili turned out a little on the liquidy side, which wasn't much of a problem.  I merely strained out the liquid from the chili.  It was a chili whose beef fell apart in my mouth because it was so tender and spicy hot.  And true, the different chiles give a depth to this chili that make this one I will have to come back for over again.

Sources:

DallasVegan.com.  "Simple Vegan Migas…Brownsville Style".  DallasVegan.com, posted January 19, 2009.  Copyright 2010 DallasVegan.com.  All rights reserved.

Dr. Dan (blogger).  "Spicy 3 Chilies Texas Chili a la Crock Pot".  101 Cooking for Two, posted February 25, 2012.

Fain, Lisa.  "My Oven-Baked Brisket".  Homesick Texan, posted December 16, 2008.  Copyright Homesick Texan.  All rights reserved. 

Goldwyn, Craig "Meathead".  "Barbecue Beef Brisket Texas Style".  Amazing Ribs updated March 2, 2012.  Copyright Amazing Ribs.  All rights reserved.

Guía de Tacos (Guiadetacos.com).  "Enchiladas norteñas".  Date unknown.

Johnson Miller, Ruthie.  "Banh mi, oh my! The top five Vietnamese sandwich shops in Houston".  Culture Map Houston, posted February 26, 2011.  Copyright 2009-2012 Culture Map, LLC.  All rights reserved.

Nguyen, Andrea.  "Daikon and Carrot Pickle Recipe (Do Chua)".  Viet World Kitchen, posted May 17, 2009.  Copyright 2002-2012 Andrea Nguyen.  All rights reserved.

Nguyen, Andrea.  "Master Banh Mi Sandwich Recipe".  Viet World Kitchen, posted June 17, 2009.  Copyright 2002-2012 Andrea Nguyen.  All rights reserved.

Shuttlesworth, Patrise.  "Tex-Mex vs. New Mex: Not Just About Jalapeños or Green Chiles".  On the Road, a Houston Press Blog, posted March 26, 2012.  Copyright Houston Press.  All rights reserved.

Sliter Satterwhite, Shannon. "Make a Batch of Texas Chili".  Southern Living Magazine, October 2005.

von der Mehden, Fred R. "Vietnamese".  Handbook of Texas Online.  Date unknown.  Published by the Texas State Historical Association.  Copyright 2012 Texas State Historical Association, published by the Texas State Historical Association, and distributed in partnership with the University of North Texas Sponsors.  All rights reserved.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Texas" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Texas".

Snacking State-by-State: Ohio II - C-H-I-L-I in Cincinnati

In this State-by-State series we have encountered several varieties of truly American dishes.  Doesn't matter if they originated here: they are made here in enough different varieties by now that they are Americanized.  I've made a few types of clam chowder (Connecticut and Massachusetts), potato salads (DC and Mississippi), cole slaws (Missouri, North Carolina and, again, DC), fry breads (Minnesota and New Mexico) and barbecue (again, Missouri and North Carolina).  Plus, we're bound once again to see fried chicken (Maryland so far).  But where has chili been through all this?  It's been waiting for Ohio to pop up, quietly.

Official Name: State of Ohio
State Nicknames: The Buckeye State, The Mother of Presidents
Admission to the US: March 1, 1803 (#17)
Capital: Columbus (largest)
Other Important Cities: Cleveland (2nd largest), Cincinnati (3rd largest), Toledo (4th largest), Akron (5th largest)
Region: Midwest, Great Lakes; East North Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Maple Syrup, Wild Rice, Chestnut, Corn Bread & BBQ
Bordered by: Lake Erie (north); Michigan (northwest); Indiana (west); Ohio River (south); Kentucky (southwest); West Virginia (southeast); Pennsylvania (east)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: white-tailed deer (mammal), tomato (fruit), pawpaw (native fruit), tomato juice (beverage)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: typical Midwestern foods; city chicken (no longer common); ethnic European foods, particularly German (bratwurst, German potato salad, sauerkraut) & Amish foods, Polish, Italian and Irish; buckeye candies; Shaker lemon pie; Cincinnati chili, sauerkraut balls and (again) bratwurst


Most non-vegetarians who have been to southwestern Ohio's largest city, and certainly anyone who lives there, is familiar with the legendary Cincinnati chili.  For the rest of us, it's a slightly weird mishmash of things you do normally see in chili and things you don't.  It's shredded cheddar cheese on top of raw chopped onions on top of hot kidney beans, on top of a pork and beef chili flavored with tomato sauce and many spices (including cinnamon, cloves and allspice, which don't usually feature in chili).  Here's where it gets particularly weird: it's served over spaghetti.  Ah, those Midwesterners and their unique uses for spaghetti!  At the very least it's the chili and spaghetti.  The other toppings aren't always included, but if they are, that's what you call "five-way" Cincinnati-style chili.


What are the origins of Cincinnati chili?  Cliff Lowe notes on the In Mama's Kitchen website that the likely origins of Cincinnati's unique chili dates to 1922, to a pair of brothers who emigrated from Macedonia:

...Tom Athanas Kiradjieff settled in Cincinnati with his brother, John. He opened a hot dog stand, which he named 'Empress' and sold hot dogs and Greek food. He did a lousy business because, at that time, the large majority of the inhabitants were of German heritage, and nobody in the area knew anything about Greek food, and weren't thrilled by it.
Tom was not to be defeated. He took a Greek stew, maintained the Mediterranean spices of Cinnamon and Cloves [sic], changed the meat to ground beef, and added other spices, such as chili powder, to the mix and began to sell this stew over spaghetti and called it 'Chili.' It proved to be a successful experiment. [Lowe, date unknown]

Since then Cincinnati-style chili has become an important and uniquely Midwestern and uniquely Greek contribution to America's chili landscape.  And even though I have never been to Cincinnati, I'm getting the chance to make it here.

The Recipe: Cincinnati Chili

Though there are several versions of this recipe, I am using Marcia Adams' version from her Heartland cookbook, pages  182 to 183 (I halved her recipe).  The ingredients list seemed intimidating, but the recipe itself is not.  Mostly it's just throwing most of the ingredients together.

For the chili you will need:

* equal parts of ground pork and ground beef (the beef I got for about $5 a lb at Harris Teeter - it was Angus beef, but I only got half a pound of it.  The pork I got for about $4 a lb at Whole Foods)
* celery (had it)
* onions (you will also need some chopped raw onion as a topping, as noted below)
* tomato sauce (I just bought some canned tomatoes for less than a dollar a can and emptied the can into the blender.  Simple tomato sauce)
* tomato paste (had it)
* lemon juice (had it; preferably fresh; no one will rat on you if you use it from a bottle)
* allspice (was out of it: bought some at Fresh Market for about $3)
* bay leaves (had them but they were old.  Replaced them for about $3, also from Fresh Market)
* chili powder, cumin, cinnamon, cloves, salt and black pepper (had it all)
* garlic (had it)
* sugar (just a little - had it)

You will also need water for this part.  And you aren't eating this chili by itself.  You need to add a few things after the fact:

* kidney beans (hot - a can is a little over $1 at Harris Teeter)
* cheddar cheese ($3 or $4 for a block of Vermont Cheddar cheese at Harris Teeter)
* yet more chopped onions (had it)
* spaghetti (I was actually out - bad Italian-American, bad bad!  I prefer thin spaghetti to the regular fat kind, and got it for about $1 a box.  Preferably you will toss this with a little olive oil)

Go ahead and grind those spices that aren't already powdered - for me, the allspice, cloves and black pepper.

And yes, get the tomato sauce ready.

Throw all of the chili ingredients together, cover, and bring to a boil

Break that up with your fingers and drop it into the pot.

Again, bring to a boil, this time uncovered.

I added a little cayenne for kick.  I didn't add nearly enough for my liking.

Leave this to simmer for one to two hours, again uncovered, until it is as thick as you want it to be (or until you lose your patience).  I originally had wanted to do this step in the slow cooker, but because it must stay uncovered I let go of that option, since you don't typically leave a slow cooker uncovered.  I probably could have, but just didn't feel like going through the trouble.

Meanwhile, prep your toppings: shred the cheese, chop the onions and heat the kidney beans.

Take your spaghetti...

...and break it in half.  Boil until done.  Do this step about 10 minutes before you plan to serve the chili.

And now to construct your Cincinnati chili, the proper way (according to Marcia Adams at least): put your spaghetti in a flat bottomed bowl.

Layer on top with the chili.

Next, add the kidney beans.

Then the raw onions.

And finally the Cheddar cheese.

Well, this is indeed like no other chili I have eaten.  The blend of spices is unusual, and it does make for a nice flavor.  It doesn't really get lost amid all these toppings, and makes for a hearty, filling and not exactly diet-friendly dish.  This will fill you up.  Several sources say to add oyster crackers (yet another strange addition), but I'm good with my chili five ways.

Sources:

Adams, Marcia. Heartland: The Best of the Old and the New from Midwest Kitchens. Clarkson Potter: New York, 1991.

Christina (blog author).  "Sauerkraut Balls".  Sweet Pea's Kitchen, posted February 5, 2012.  Copyright 2010-2012 Sweet Pea's Kitchen, all rights reserved.

Lowe, Cliff.  "The Life and Times of Chili Cincinnati Chili - Part Two" [sic].  In Mama's Kitchen, date unknown.  Copyright 2012 In Mama's Kitchen, all rights reserved.

"Ohio's Favorite: Buckeye Candy Recipe".  Recipe postcard, date unknown.

University of Akron Press.  "Akronisms: Sauerkraut Balls".  An Akronism, posted June 9, 2010.  Copyright 2012 University of Akron Press, all rights reserved.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Ohio" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Ohio".

Special thanks to Eric Randolph for making the buckeyes with me, for offering the use of his kitchen, and for giving me his advice in making buckeye candy and in preparing bratwurst.

Green Tomato and Pickle Salsa

My sister made crab cakes last night - with crab meat picked by her own hands - and I saved it for lunch today. As an accompaniment, I was thinking how to use the vegetables and herbs from my garden, and realize that many things in my fridge are things I love to eat fried: green tomatoes (from the garden), pickle chips (not from the garden), and zucchini (from the farmers' market). I saved the zucchini for later, and used the green tomato and pickle chips for the basis of a salsa. Green tomatoes are common in salsas. Pickles are common in relishes, which are kind of like a salsa if you think about it hard enough. But I've not seen green tomatoes and pickles in a salsa together. Well, that's over.

Green Tomato and Pickle Salsa

2 firm medium green tomatoes, diced
4 to 5 sweet pickle chips, diced, or 1 small sweet pickle spear, diced
1 - 2 tablespoons juice from the pickle jar
1 tablespoon lemon or lime juice
3 small green chili peppers, diced (with or without seeds as to your liking)
1 large clove garlic, diced
1/2 to 1 small red onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt
several sprigs mint, basil or cilantro, chopped

Fry the garlic, red onion and chili pepper in the olive oil with a little sprinkle of salt over medium heat until soft and slightly brown, to release the flavors. Meanwhile, mix the green tomato, pickles and herb together in the pickle juice and lemon or lime juice. Add the fried items and mix well. Refrigerate.

Note: This salsa is based on stuff I had lying around and was rather cheap for me to make. One thing here or there can be omitted if you don't have it around. You could also experiment to see what might be a good addition. But the green tomatoes and pickle chips are mandatory.

I was surprised at how well it turned out. Usually, when I get a last-minute idea for a recipe it does not always turn out too well. The pickles were a nice, surprising addition and the mint seemed to tie the whole salsa together.

How I learned to stop worrying and love the chili

This from the Associated Press: the Indian military plans to use the bhut jolokia ("ghost chili") - the world's hottest chili pepper - as a weapon. For comparison's sake:

• the jalapeño chili wimps out at a mere 8,000 Scoville units.
  
• Tabasco sauce tops out at an anemic 50,000 Scovilles.
• The mighty habanero, long feared by me and almost anyone else who values his or her mouth, registers at a mere 350,000 at the max (typically only 100,000).
  
• And the bhut jolokia? About 1,000,000 Scovilles. That's anywhere from 3 to 10 times as intense as any habanero you might pick up at your local supermarket.
• Very very few things are hotter than the bhut jolokia, but nothing that you'd deliberately put in your mouth: pepper spray is about 5,000,000 Scovilles - about 5 times as hot as the bhut jolokia. But you're not going to eat that.
  

I just love the photo that's circulating with the AP story, taken in 2007 by Manish Swarup:

Gotta have chilis!

Perhaps this gentleman, identified as farmer Digonta Saikia from Assam state, India, can take the heat. As for me? Um, I'll get back to you on that.

Dips and Spreads from Africa, Asia and Europe

I spent way too much today. Most of it was at Jiffy Lube - $20 for a new air filter (it was pretty disgusting), $40 for an oil change, $90 for a radiator flush! And an extra $30 to fill my not-so-large gas tank down the street.

Today I happened to choose the Elkridge Jiffy Lube to get my car serviced. Hey, if I'm driving it to OC, Jamestown and all over the Baltimore area this summer, I'd better damn well make sure it's in top working order. Yes, I know I should take it to a mechanic for that, but I don't have a lot of money to work with here.

I was hungry, and my family was going to this cookout in Essex (two hours after they were supposed to even leave, there they are, still waiting in the house). So I didn't want to eat too much. I took a walk (it's healthy) past the KFC, past the Taco Bell, even past the Subway, to the little strip mall across from the Super Fresh shopping center at the corner of Montgomery Rd and US Route 1. Famous mostly as the location of a now-shut-down "massage" parlor, it now houses some spas and beauty parlors, as well as a Chinese take-out place, a deli and an international market. The deli was closed, the Chinese take-out place had nowhere to sit, and the market had no food ready to eat. But I went in there anyway to see what I could find.

This market is an "African-Caribbean-Latino" market. I'd say it's about 50% Caribbean, 30% Latino and 20% African, but I may be way off on those figures. As much as I like food from all those areas, I went for the one least known to me - African. There are not many African groceries or restaurants in the Bawlmer area. You have to go to Washington for a better selection. And this one, like all other African groceries I have set foot in, smelled like dried prawn (baby shrimp). And there it was aplenty! Also close by were some jarred African spreads. One, from Ghana, didn't really catch my eye. But the one next to it, Olga's Liberian Hot Fried Pepper ($4.49), did. I haven't tried this yet. Frankly, I'm a little scared to, due to the prominence of habanero chilis in the list of ingredients. But I can tolerate the spicy stuff better than most people in my family (even with the Crohn's - I didn't say I ate a lot of it), so I'll be the sport. Interestingly, it's not from Liberia; instead, it's a Liberian-American product, and the entrepreneuses are Liberian Americans sharing an old family recipe. Olga's is even based right in Elkridge!

After paying the lube guys* and filling up on gas, I ran some errands and eventually found my way up at Whole Foods - the one at the Inner Harbor. God, I love that place. Their free samples are why I love it so much. On a mission to buy some hummus (Asmar's Mediterranean Hommus, Original and Extra Garlic, $2.99 for each 8 oz. tub) with little pitas for the cookout - my sister now owes me $12, by the way - I passed by this table by the cheese section that had the most divine spread made of fig spread and Italian-style mascarpone cheese. I usually avoid the impulse buy, but this tasted too good not to buy. And it helped me avoid the cake I would've inevitably picked up. This was a mixture of, it seemed, 60% mascarpone cheese (this from the Vermont Butter & Cheese Company, $4.99) and 40% fig spread (Whole Foods Organic Adriatic Fig Spread, $4.99 for an 8.5 oz jar - which, for Whole Foods, is pretty damn cheap; I figured it'd be $8, $12 easily).

I wonder how the Liberian fried pepper would taste with the fig spread? Stranger things have been mixed together...

UPDATE: No, I haven't mixed the fried pepper and the fig spread. But I did try just a little bit of the fried pepper - not even the pepper, just the liquid it was sitting in - on a boneless steak. It is hot! Also found out that, as much as I love cake, the cake they sell at Geresbeck's in Middle River is too damn sugary for my tastes.

* That didn't come out right, especially after passing that ex-"massage" parlor.