chili

i had my new kosugi neighbor, linda, over for dinner tuesday, so i made a big pot of chili on monday. i hope you're not thinking, "nice, laura, way to serve your guest leftovers," because it's no secret that chili tastes better the next day. this is a fairly good size recipe, maybe 6-8 servings. chili keeps really well (in the freezer, too), and i can eat it for four days without getting sick of it, so i always make a big pot. and for as unjapanese as this dish is, the ingredients are really easy to find and fairly inexpensive. chili is just really fun to make, and pretty foolproof. the reason why there are no how-to pictures is that there is really nothing complicated about the process. it's all about the spices; you should just keep tasting and adding things until it's exactly how you like it.

ingredients
250 g dry pinto beans (or 2 cans) (1)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
5 small green peppers, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp paprika (2)
2 tbsp cumin (3)
3 tbsp chili powder (4)
350 g ground beef
2 cans tomatoes (5)
1 bottle tomato sauce (6)
1 tsp salt
dash pepper
hot sauce to taste

(1)うずら豆, (2)パプリカ, (3)クミン, (4)チリパウダー, (5)ホールトマト, (6)トマトピュレー

i got the chili powder and hot sauce at yamaya in takaoka. everything else is from e-town in kosugi.

i listened to shaolin soul, volumes 1 & 2 while making my chili.

let's go!

1. a. buying beans--i've only ever found canned beans at foreign food groceries, and those were kind of expensive. kidney beans or even black beans would work, too. if you buy dried beans at the grocery, be careful not to buy azuki beans (小豆); the big ones kind of look like kidney beans. they're sweet and delicious, but not what you want for chili--pinto beans are tan with little dark dots. if in doubt, you can always hold up the bag and ask the checker if they are sweet. that's what i finally did :-/

b. cooking beans--if you bought canned beans, skip this part. for dried beans, rinse them and check to make sure there are no pebbles or weird freaky beans. soak for 4-6 hours in a bowl with a 1:3 bean to water ratio. then boil beans with a tsp of salt for about two hours, until tender. when they are finished, drain the water and gently rinse. set aside for the moment.

2. heat oil in a stock pot and add garlic, red pepper, green pepper, and onion. sweat until veggies begin to get tender (3-5 minutes)

3. add paprika, cumin, and chili powder. make sure keep stirring things around so that your spices don't burn on the bottom of your pan.

4. add the ground beef. some people freak out about the raw meat touching the vegetables, and it may well be wrong, but i do it all the time--no one has ever gotten botulised at one of my dinners. you'll be cooking it well done anyway, but if it bothers you, you can cook the meat in a separate pan and add it to the veggies.

5. when the meat is done, add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, beans, salt, pepper, and hot sauce. let everything get hot, and then turn the heat down to low.

6. now, this is the most important part. at this point you should stir everything up and taste. now is the time to add more cumin, chili powder, salt, hot sauce, or whatever you need. if you don't know what you're doing, just add a little at a time. also, if it is too thick, add a little water . if it is too thin, add tomato paste (トマトペースト). just keep in mind that it will thicken up overnight.

7. when it's just right, put it in the refrigerator. eat it tomorrow.

enjoy!

this is just how i make chili. it's really basic, and sometimes i add different stuff just for fun. salsa, beer, mustard, oregano, celery, worcestershire, and sausage are some things you could play with that would work. if you are not a cumin fan, you might want to hold back a little, because i love it, and i always put a lot in. anyway, linda seemed to like it. we ate this on rice when she was over, but where i'm from we eat it on spaghetti. it's also good on a salad with sour cream or over eggs.

huevos rancheros

i've had a vegetarian at my house for the last week, so i haven't really been eating a lot of meat. but he cooks pretty well, so i haven't really been missing it. it's been ungodly hot around here, and i really didn't feel like going to the grocery one afternoon. niko rummaged around the cupboard, and this is what he came up with. yummy!


ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 clove garlic
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 can black beans
3/4 can corn
3/4 can stewed tomatoes, chopped
4 eggs
cilantro (1)

(1) コリアンダー

the chili powder, olive oil, and black beans are from yamaya in takaoka. the cilantro is from himi vicki's garden (but i've also found it in jusco in tak). everything else is from jusco in takaoka.

for added deliciousness, listen to manu chao--clandestino while cooking.

let's go!
1. sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil until tender. the onions will look kind of translucent.

2. add the chili powder, cumin, paprika, pepper, and salt. mix in, and let the flavors cook into the onion for a few minutes.

3. turn the heat down. add the beans, corn and tomatoes. black beans can be a little hard to find sometimes (and expensive), but you can usually find pinto or at least kidney, and i think either of those would taste just fine. niko wants me to tell you you can use fresh tomatoes, but make sure not to throw out the larval looking stuff on the inside.

4. stir everything together, but don't stir like this unless you're trying to be silly.

5. let everything cook over low heat for awhile, until everything cooks down kind of thick and out-of-focus like this.

6.now that the beans are done, you can make the eggs. mine were over medium, but you can make them however you want. silly faces are not necessary, but encouraged.

7. slide the eggs on top of a plate of rice.

8. spoon some bean mixture on top.

9. sprinkle some cilantro on top. now, cilantro can be hard to find sometimes, so when i see some, i just grab it and make something. if you're going to go searching, note that cilantro in japanese is not shirantoro, but korianda, because cilantro is the leaf of the coriander plant. but if you don't have cilantro, don't worry about it. this dish is still very yummy without it. i usually pull the leaves from the stems and then chop, but you can skip the first step, which is much faster.


enjoy!
we ate this with a spoonful of salsa. we lamented our lack of cheese or sour cream, which we both agreed would have set things off quite nicely. it was still very delicious. a couple days later, we had some leftovers with a dollop of guacamole, and that was really good, too.