Hearty Beef Chili

DSC 0014 21 500x746 Hearty Beef Chili

Alas, a real deal manly meal! No truffle oil, no hollandaise, no puff pastry. It doesn’t have any fancy French words thrown in like mousse, roulade or frisée. Just a good ol’ hearty meal after a long day in the fields, harvesting wheat in your tractor (is that what you even use a tractor for???).

DSC 0030 2 499x334 Hearty Beef Chili
I may not be a certified country bumpkin but I do love love love country music AND I own a pair of cowboy boots (the real ones from a trading post and not the trendy bedazzled ones from Aldo). So when I whip up a batch of this chili recipe, I channel this down home side of me. I’m transported to a place where I’m a “lil’ lady” and my French boyfriend is wearing denim coveralls and shoveling hay with a pitchfork.

And when I bite into this hearty beef chili, it takes me to a farm, sitting at a beat up wooden table underneath an oak tree, as we devour our chili, cornbread and lemonade from a mason jar. Some random old man is sittin’ on his rocking chair on the front porch, cleaning his shotgun, of course and the only sound you hear is the breeze blowing through the corn fields. Meanwhile, we’re really just in the living room of our cozy Manhattan apartment, eating a bowl of chili in front of the iMac watching an episode of Little House on the Prairie.
DSC 0016 2 500x746 Hearty Beef Chili

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground sirloin
1 15 oz. can of kidney beans, drained
1 15 oz. can of black beans, drained
3 15 oz. cans of diced tomatoes
1 cup red wine
2 cup beef broth
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 large shallot, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 jalapeño, seeded and diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp taco seasoning
2 tsp fresh thyme, minced
salt & pepper
shredded cheddar cheese for garnish (optional)
diced red onions for garnish (optional)
  1. In a 3.5 quart cast iron dutch oven, saute ground beef over medium heat. Season with salt & pepper. When cooked, drain the beef and transfer into a bowl. Add a little olive oil to the same pot and saute onions, shallots and bell pepper for 5-7 minutes. Next, add jalapeño, garlic and thyme. Saute for another 7 minutes.
  2. Next, add red wine and stir. Once the wine has reduced to about half, add beef broth and bring to a simmer. Then stir in kidney beans, black beans, and diced tomatoes. Mix thoroughly and bring to a boil. Next, simmer over low heat for 1 1/2 hours with a cover on. Stir occasionally. This chili is best the following the day. Cover and refrigerate overnight. When ready to served, ladle over individual bowls and top with shredded cheddar cheese and red onions.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 13:15and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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