It’s very hot where I live right now and I really want some ice cream, or at least enjoy sitting in a nice pool-mobile filled with Epson salts. I guess I will have to settle for some Texas Style Chili and Ginger Ale for reasons I’m not entirely clear on. Apparently, locals in Texas call this style of chili a “bowl of red” but I don’t think I own nearly enough cowboy hats to convincingly pull off using that expression. Let’s just call it chili, shall we?
Besides a few delightful layovers at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, I have never been to Texas. Therefore, I am basing this recipe on internet reading and not first-hand experience. According to my research, Texas style chili should:
- not include beans;
- not include tomatoes (usually, this one was not as cut and dry);
- include masa for thickening (which I couldn’t find but my chili thickened up just fine so whatever)
Ingredients
- 2 pounds beef chuck or roast
- 2 cups beef stock
- 2 cups water
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 onion
- Vegetable oil (as needed)
- 8 dried guajillo chiles
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 2 teaspoons cumin (ground into powder)
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- Salt to taste
- Ginger Ale
Directions
Dice onion and finely chop garlic; cut beef into 1-inch cubes and set all aside. Rehydrate your guajillo chiles(or whatever chiles you like) by soaking in water until they are soft enough. Remove the seeds depending on how spicy you want things to be. Use a blender and combine rehydrated chiles with water to create a paste and set aside. Heat a large pan with vegetable oil and saute onions until clear, then add garlic and cook for another minute before adding the spices.
Add beef to the mixture and cook until brown. Next add the chili paste and half of your beef stock and set to simmer. Continue adding stock as liquid is cooked off. Meat should be simmer for a minimum of two hours, but the longer you cook the better. Remove from heat and serve with boiling hot, Texas style ginger ale.
I didn’t go into the instructions on preparing the boiling hot ginger ale, since that seemed pretty self explanatory. Plus, I already made Hot Pepsi before and the concept is basically exactly the same. As before, liquids intended to be served carbonated and chilled are not as good boiling hot. What was good is the chili. I still prefer my chili with beans, green peppers and tomatoes, but eating a giant bowl of beef in a delicious red spicy sauce was still quite tasty. …Texas!
Cromulence: 7 The Tinklers out of 10
Texas Style Chili and Ginger Ale Recipe From: Bart of Darkness (The Simpsons Season 6 – Episode 1)
What if the ginger ale was supposed to be only figuratively boiling hot? Ginger has a natural, pepper-like bite, and some brands have quite a bit that kind of heat.
That’s an interesting theory, but at the same time the food and drink are meant to be as unappetizing as possible during a hot summer day. I’m usually not craving anything piping hot in the middle of summer.
Look it up but strangely enough, things hot like coffee or coco and very warm food like a good ole’ spicy TX chili actually make you feel “cooler inside”. The theory makes sense… If you raise your internal temp, you feel cooler in warmer spaces. Think of it like a fever. Get shivers and chills when you get one? Well, mom covered me up with 40 blankets, I sweat and wanted to remove them but she told me NO… “Sweat it out”. NEVER have I had anything more true spoken to me by anyone. Even my mom! Aspirin and other… Read more »
First of all, a well thought out response that provides insight into the recipe AND cooking advice?! Quite frankly this has warmed my cold, cold heart and my stomach because I am now attempting to eat cold things during cold weather and see how that goes. I actually do like cold things in winter, for example ice cream because the cold weather means that it won’t melt. Perhaps this seems crazy to some, but I definitely understand what you’re getting at with the “heat beats heat” concept. And, quite frankly, there is never a wrong time to eat chili no… Read more »
I don’t care if it is summer I wouldn’t mind having a bowl of good chili. But I hope you put on your chili boots when making/eating this recipe. And if you want ice cream you could make yourself a banana kaboom or if you’re really desperate you could hi-jack an ice cream truck for some sweet raspberry.
Oh, and I should inform you, your epidermis is showing.
It is?! *falls off the top of the tree house* Great, now I gotta start worrying about that sinister looking kid watching me with the telescope his sister won at the Optics Festival.