Frito Pie Lesson

Early-morning Cooking and Sunday Leftovers (Including Chili Dish #3)

I bought a little too much shoulder roast when I was making Chili on Friday so I woke up this morning and started a Pot Roast. For some reason, I thought about brandy and decided to make a Pot Roast with some of it. Never tried this before, but I can't imagine that it won't be good. I'll let the family be the judges on that one.  I left the potatoes out of the roast, deciding instead to whip some creamy Yukon Golds as a side dish later this evening. I think I'll use some of the pan liquid in a brandy reduction sauce. Sound good to you?

Since Kitty was feeling like she had been hit by a garbage truck falling off the top a a garage, Zak was serving as her warming blanket and the two big boys are in New Orleans, I was the only Ramsey at Saint Andrew's this morning. I didn't feel like eating fried chicken all by myself so I came home, donned the apron, inspected the fridge and opened the short-order kitchen. Since Kitty and Zak can't have any wheat, I used this opportunity to make some pasta for me out of the pork chops from earlier in the week. They were in the mood for omelettes so I used up the last of the Chili de los Angeles on them. I wont bother with a recipe for the omelettes, they were just like any of the other eggy treats you have seen on this blog, just filled with cheese and chili. The über-simple pasta recipe is below. 

Leftover Pasta

2 Tbsp. unsalted butter

2 Tbsp. flour

3 cloves fresh garlic

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese (or other dry aged, hard cheese) 

1 tsp. thyme

1/2 cup whole milk

1/2 cup chicken stock (or other stock to match your leftover meat)

leftover meat

green onions for garnish

Sea salt

Black pepper

Prep

Cut the leftover meat into 1/2" or smaller cubes. Finely chop garlic. Crumble or shred the cheese. Warm the milk in the microwave until hot, but not boiling.

Cook

Heat a large saute pan over medium heat and add butter. When butter begins to foam, add chopped garlic and cook until it just starts to color. Add flour and stir with a whisk until it is fully incorporated into the butter. slowly add milk, whisking constantly. When the mixture begins to thicken, add the cubed meat, the cheese and the thyme. Add broth as necessary to maintain the desired thickness of the sauce. Taste the sauce and add salt and pepper as desired.

Boil the pasta in lightly salted water. Drain but DO NOT RINSE the pasta. Add the cooked pasta to the saucepan and toss with the sauce until all of the pasta is coated.

Plate

Serve in a large shallow bowl and garnish with green onions.

Chili, Day Two and Beyond

When I make chili, it is usually a big stock pot event. It's not that we eat that much chili in a setting, but because it's so versatile that we can use it all sorts of different dishes over the next month or so. After eat our first, all chili meal, I put the leftovers in several containers of differing sizes. Some little containers go in the freezer to be pulled out at a later date for chili-dogs, others for chili-omelettes. Larger container goes in the fridge and is used in the next day or so for one of my favorite dishes, Frito Pie. For such a simple, pedestrian dish, it is complex in both flavor and texture. The spice of the chili is amplified by the saltiness of the corn chips. The cheese mellows out the heat and the lime and cilantro are crisp notes that play well accentuating the heaviness of everything else.

Today, Kitty and I went by Monte and Amy's house to have lunch, watch some Olympics and pick up Zak from his birthday sleepover with Dakota. When I offered to bring Frito Pie, the answer was a resounding "YES!"

Here's a still shot of the finished product. Video will be up later. I wont bother with a recipe, just a formula. In this order, Fritos + Chili + Shredded Cheese + Chopped Cilantro + Lime Juice = Frito Pie. Don't email me asking for measurements, just wing it and use the picture as a guide.

Bon Appetit!
~Tom

Snow in Mississippi = Chili in our house!

When I went to sleep last night, there was a light dusting of snow starting to fall and the temperature was hovering around 39 degrees. There was plenty of talk about heavy snow and school closings, but the weather didn't quite look like it was going to do much. The Jackson Public School System said yesterday that they would announce school closings at 5:00AM so naturally, the kids were bounding out of bed at 4:50 to check the news. What they awoke to was this. Indeed, school was closed.

Everyone scurried about, putting on layers of clothes, rubber boots, hats and gloves. Kitty and I rolled over, turned off the alarm and hoped that no one died of frostbite or exposure while we went back to sleep until some less rude hour.

By the time we dragged ourselves out of the warmth of the electric blanket, the whole of Belhaven was blanketed in a thick layer of heavy, wet snow. Every kids in the neighborhood was in the streets and the muffled silence was only broken by the sounds of laughter and the occasional thud of a massive snowball finding its target.

Stuart  managed to make his way to Broad Street Baking company to (what else) meet with some girls to drink hot chocolate. Whit wandered over to his friend Jay's house to congregate with other young teens for sledding and Kitty taught Zak and Charlie how to make their first snowman (and snowdog) ever. We named the snowman Bubba Wayne and I started thinking about Chili!

Since the chili was going to be for kids and adults alike, I decided to make two batches. I called them Chili de los Angeles and Chili de los Diablos. The recipes were identical except for whole jalepeno and the amounts of dried ancho chilis and Indian chili powder. One warms you up like a nice hug from your mom while the other kicks you in the gut, sets your hair on fire and tries to put you out with a bucket of jet fuel.
Bon Appetit!
~Tom

Chili de los Angeles y Chili de los Diablos

Serves 10

3 lbs. chuck (cubed)

4 lbs. ground beef (round, sirloin or chuck)

8 cloves garlic

2 large yellow onions

1 large red onion

1 bunch green onions

1 jalapeño pepper

3 Tbsp. oregano

2 Tbsp. Mexican chili powder

1 Tbsp. or more Indian chili powder (Diablo only)

3 Tbsp. ground cumin

3 Tbsp. paprika

3 or more dried ancho chili peppers with stems and seeds removed (Diablo only)

2 Tbsp. whole coriander

1 tsp. cinnamon powder

4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate

4 Tbsp. olive oil

1 bottle dark beer

1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes

Cilantro for garnish

Limes for garnish

1 cup sour cream

2 cups queso fresco (or shredded jack cheese)

Prep

Coarsely chop the red onions, yellow onions and garlic. Cut the chuck into ½ inch cubes. Remove the seeds and white membrane from jalapeño pepper and finely chop the remaining flesh. Finely chop the green onions and the ancho chili peppers. Slice the limes into wedges.

Cook

Place a stock pot over medium heat until it is very hot (3 minutes will do the trick) add the cubed beef and quickly brown on all sides. Add olive oil, garlic, red onions, yellow onions and jalapeño pepper and cook until onions are translucent. Add ground beef and brown completely. Add all herbs and dry ingredients, including ancho chilis. Add chocolate and stir until it is well mixed with the beef. Add ½ bottle of beer and tomatoes. Bring all to a simmer and cook until the liquid is reduced by half.

Plate

Ladle chili into a large bowl and top with a dollop of sour cream. Sprinkle with cheese and green onions and garnish with cilantro and lime wedges.

Variations

To morph this bowl of goodness into Frito Pie, cover the bottom of a bowl with corn chips, spoon on a heavy layer of chili, top with melted cheese and microwave for about 30 seconds or until the cheese melts.