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aleswench 14 years, 7 months ago.
Greyghost, you are a genius! Great idea[:o)]
From the description alone it looks like you have a serious chance of winning.
Since the competition is sponsored by Westfall Winery, I would seriously consider using one of their wines as an added secret ingredient. Sangiovese looks like a possibility, they describe it as garnet colored, exploding with cherries and having a soft finish. It should add that touch of sweetness that others here have talked about. In cooking competitions it never hurts to suck up to the sponsor a bit. I think you still have time to experiment with a splash or two of the wine.
Sure it’s a little risky, but really only one of two things can happen:
1. You win and the chili-heads hang you as a heretic
2. You lose and the winery burns you at the stake as a heretic.
Good luck no matter what you do.
Fingers Crossed for luck [;)]
Well, Sunday’s the big day. Looking forward to it! We re-tweaked the recipe last night and think we have a great batch. We were very nervous about our initial batch – it just didn’t have any flavor up front. But then we added more roasted poblanos and onion and it did the trick. Wish us luck! Will let you know how we did on Monday. Sue
[:D]Hope you win the competition.Around here they do have chili cookoffs for the average guy which I think are more fun.
Wes,one of the mechanics at the bus barn for our school district,entered a bbq contest.He won 3rd place for ribs,5th for sausage,and first place for his cadillac grill.No it’s no joke,he has turned an old cadillac into a grill with steer horns on the front and flames painted on the side.
Let us all know how things go.
Thanks for all the encouragement! Over the weekend we started our beef stock. Strained and adjusted it last night. Tonight we will be making the chili. It seems kind of soon for me to make it for Sunday, but Bob thinks it needs some time to rest and meld together, then we’ll package it in those flavor seal bags…the ones you suck the air out of with the machine. We figure this will help two ways -it will stay airtight fresh, and solve the problem of how to heat it up onsite. You can’t use electric, and we don’t have a camping stove. We figure we’ll use the cajun cooker and boil water, then boil the bags instead of heating it directly on the flame to prevent burning. I think that even on it’s lowest setting the cooker’s flame will be way too high. Any opinions on heating it up in the bags?? Sue
Bob & Sue
Good Luck, Once you get bitten by the competition bug watch out!! I started out doing chili in a local competition, now I have done, chili, Que, chowder, gumbo & scallops.
It is a fun way to travel and find roadfood.
Again, goodluck and keep us posted please.
quote:
Originally posted by rjb
If the judging is going to be done with small tastings (a spoonful or tow) make it saltier than you otherwise would. Sweet & salty wins every time in taste tests, even though you probably wouldn’t want to eat a normal portion seasoned that way.
Sweet and salty? I think you are correct. I have found that to be true many times. My favorite spaghetti place is slightly sweet and salty. I prefer it over any other place.
Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN
Never tried the black coffee- I just went back and re-read the "Weird things you put in chili" thread, and apparently alot of people do. I don’t think we’ll try it for the cook-off though – maybe we’ll take a sampling and add some coffee to see how it tastes. Yes, that’s what we’ll do. I also liked the suggestion to add some bean JUICE (and juice only!) to it to make it glossy. Will try that. Cinnamon and even a little nutmeg go into it too!
Anonymous
Sue… No cup of black coffee added????
If the judging is going to be done with small tastings (a spoonful or tow) make it saltier than you otherwise would. Sweet & salty wins every time in taste tests, even though you probably wouldn’t want to eat a normal portion seasoned that way.
Well& .we don t have an exact recipe that s followed. Bob is the cook, I m just the sous chef , but there are some important things that we ve learned along the chili journey. We think that grinding your own spices is a must. We buy the whole dried chili peppers and grind them for chili powder. There is a huge Mexican population in a neighboring town, so even the Shop Rite carries plenty of different kinds of dried peppers. We ve also tried re-constituting them, and scraping the inside pulp and adding that as the chili flavoring, but it was extremely time consuming to use that alone, and it seemed that that method didn t provide enough punch, so we use a combination of both the dried ground up and re-constituted peppers now.
Another thing that we feel adds to the flavor is roasting the fresh poblano, green and red peppers over a flame and then peeling off the blackened skin, instead of just chopping them up raw.
For the meat, we use a combination of ground beef and beef round cut into small cubes.
Onions, beer, beef broth, garlic (of course!), cumin, chipotle, cayenne and a few secret spices complete the mix.
We ll see! Win or lose, it ll be a fun day. Something different. And yes, I think it s a great marketing idea, too!
Sounds like a really fun thing to me. Any chili I have ever made would not qualify for any competition but it was fun.
Good luck and sounds like a great thing to do with friends. Chili goes great with libation[}:)][:D]
Care to share with us your recipe???[:p]
Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN
What fun! Ingenious way for this unknown winery to get themselves on the map. It’ll be interesting to hear what wines you think hold up to the robustness of chili. Break a leg!
Catherine
[:D] I’m tired of reading about competitions for the pros. This ismuch more to my taste because it looks like fun! I can’t be there, but keep us posted.
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