So Tyson decided to organize (and clear out) the refrigerator & the spice cabinet.
Since we have a bunch of dried beans on hand, and a turkey carcase left-over from Practice Thanksgiving (yes...we do Thanksgiving in June as well as November!) in the freezer. We also had some smoked pork neck bones in there, and the skins from some pork belly we had from a cooking demo Tyson did a while back, we decided to make some stock & turn it into chili.
Of course you don't have to make the stock from scratch, but if you have random left-over meat parts & bones, you can make some epic stock & use it for all sorts of things!
We started by soaking some white beans (we had a 24oz bag of dried white beans) overnight.
In the morning, we placed the turkey carcase, the ham hocks and the pork belly skins in a large stock pot. We then poured in 8 cups of water and tossed in a bay leaf.
Bring the whole thing to a boil & then turn it down to simmer for a few hours. You want the meat on the ham bones to be tender enough to pull from the bone.
Once the stock is ready, pull out the big turkey carcase as well as any large pieces of meat & bone, and set aside. Then strain the rest of the broth.
Pull the meat from the bones. Taste a piece, and if it's not completely depleted, you can put it back into your chili.
For a little bonus, Tyson pulled the pork belly skins out & pan fried them up with some garlic. We served them nice & crispy on the side...YUM!
This stock making step is optional. If you don't want to cook all day long, you can just use 8 cups of stock. Any kind will work....chicken, pork, beef, etc.
Now for the recipe:
Pre-soak your beans. I usually do them the night before, but read the package.
Ingredients:
8 cups of stock
1 bay leaf
24oz pre-soaked beans (we used white beans, but any beans will work)
1 bottle of beer (use a robust beer like a stout or a Newcastle)
large can of tomato sauce
2 Tbs paprika
4 Tbs chili powder
1/2 Tsp cayenne pepper
1 Tsp turmeric
2 Tbs cumin
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise
4squares from a bar of dark chocolate
Once you have your stock ready, put it back into the pot. Then rinse your beans well and place them into the stock.
Bring the beans to a boil & then turn it down to simmer for about an hour. Once the beans are almost thoroughly cooked, take out about 2 cups & place them into a blender with a little stock.
Blend up the beans & put them back into the pot. This will help thicken up your chili.
After you put the beans in, pour in a bottle of beer, can of tomato sauce & add your spices.
We also had in the fridge, some pico de gallo (left over from fish tacos) and some chili sauce. Dump it all in (if you have any random tomato based sauces, go or anything that could taste good in chili, go ahead & toss it in too.)
Bring everything up to a boil & then turn it down to a low simmer. Let it all simmer for about an hour or so, stirring occasionally so nothing sticks to the bottom. Serve with corn bread!
