AUTHENTIC TEXAS “BOWL OF RED” CHILI RECIPE - Breezy Hill Shooting Preserve

AUTHENTIC TEXAS “BOWL OF RED” CHILI RECIPE
From a born and bred Texan

Ingredients:

1 whole brisket (I didn't pay too much attention to the weight, but it was definitely more than 3 lbs worth)

5 - 6 heaping tbsp Gebhardt chili powder (use another brand if you like)

1 tbsp cayenne pepper

5 fresh minced serrano peppers (these little babies make jalapenos look tame :)

1 tbsp Tobasco Sauce

4 cans (8 oz each) tomato sauce

18 - 20 fresh minced garlic cloves (you can buy a hand operated garlic mincer pretty cheap)

3/4 - 1 cup of fresh chopped cilantro (oh yeah, one of God's greatest creations)

2 chopped yellow onions

1 1/2 tbsp oregano

1 1/2 - 2 tbsp ground cumin

1 1/2 - 2 tbsp salt

1/4 of real butter stick (use low-fat margerine if you must)

Instructions:
Note: I won’t lie, there’s a bit of work involved in this recipe, but the result sure does taste good. Throw a good movie on the VCR or DVD player, and pause for cooking activity. Also, feel free to modify or adjust the recipe to taste. This is hot and spicy by MOST (but not all) folks’ standards, and it has no beans. My advice would be to make it strictly according to the recipe the first time for a reference, before trying a subsequent batch with modifications.

Wrap the brisket in foil and bake in a baking pan at about 400 degrees for 1 to 2 hours. Ideally, cook it just enough to brown the outside but leave the inside rare. This makes it a lot easier to cut the meat than if it were completely raw.

Remove the brisket and place on cutting board (be sure to save the juice in the pan for the chili; or not, if you are worried about the fat. You could substitute some beef broth. Also, you need a good size counter, it could be a little messy. I usually let the brisket sit for a few minutes in the sink after removing it from the baking pan before throwing it on the cutting board). Commence cutting the brisket into thumb-sized cubes. You will need to trim off the fat according to taste/patience. This is where that bit of work comes in. When mine was completely cut, quite a bit of fat and fat-striated meat was thrown away, but there was still a lot of meat left for the pot.

Place the meat in the pot (you will need a BIG pot, sorry, I don't know the volume offhand, but you know what they say, "everything's big in Texas") and pour the leftover brisket juice over the meat. Open the tomato sauce and pour over the meat. Fill the remaining capacity with water until the level is 1" over the meat level.

Put the chili powder in and bring to a rolling boil. Let it boil for a few minutes.

Reduce the heat to medium or slightly below and let simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the remaining ingredients and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce "simmers/evaporates" down to a nice thick/viscous chili sauce. This will take awhile, depending how hot you cook it. It could take anywhere from 1 to 2 hours more.

When the sauce has cooked to the viscosity of your taste, use a potato masher to briskly mash the brisket in the bottom of the pot. By this time the slow cooking at moderate temperatures should have made the brisket sufficiently tender so that a significant portion of the meat cubes will release meat strands into the sauce to give it that "oh, it's just right" consistency for authentic Texas chili.

Hope everyone enjoys it. Tastes great with shredded cheddar cheese and crackers.

- Albert Anderson