Chili Con Carne ala Pinas - Chili on a Rainy Friday Night

I remember watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory where Priya, Raj's sister, cooked chilli (Chilli, Chili Con Carne) for the gang.

PRIYA KOOTHRAPPALI:
Would you like some homemade chili?
   

SHELDON COOPER
Are there beans in it?
   

PRIYA KOOTHRAPPALI
Yes?

SHELDON COOPER
Then it's not chili. Real chili has no beans in it, but you're from a foreign land, so your ignorance is forgiven.

[Sheldon tries some of Priya's chili]
   
SHELDON COOPER
Mmmm, this is good... whatever it is.

I think this was when I first took interest in cooking this dish, Chili Con Carne. From the implication in the show, the dish was originally Texan in origin. So I went on ahead and, well, you guessed it, looked it up.

Since the article is too long to quote, let me do a summary of how I understood it. Chili con Carne is a dish that had been used by American frontier settlers originally comprised of dried beef, suet and dried chili peppers pounded together to form bricks for them to easily boil it on the road. It then gained popularity around late 1800s where Mexican women sold them in downtown San Antonio around dusk by the bowl to passers by. So, Texas-born Sheldon Cooper is actually accurate with his details, as always, regarding Chili.

Inferring from his snide remark on how "Real chili has no beans in it" is also on target as the original version does not contain beans. The addition of beans dawned early in the 20th century when beans was associated as a staple to Tex-Mex cuisines. So Texan chili may, or may not contain beans and I believe the distinction is, that chili with beans is called "Chili Beans" and the all-meat version is the one dubbed "Chili"

Okay! Enough with the history lesson and on with the cooking!!! I adapted this Chili from Jamie Oliver's Good Old Chilli Con Carne Recipe (click here). Just a note... I used all fresh ingredients except for the spices and the beans which are dried. Nothing canned or frozen since my mom is all the rage with "whole food" thing.
 

Chili, just before the slow cook simmering part

 Ingredients:
1 medium sized bell pepper
2 red lady finger peppers
2 green lady finger peppers
2 medium sized onions
2 small heads garlic (not cloves, I mean the whole garlic head)
2 stalks celery
1 medium sized carrot
2 medium sized taro potato (to my beloved fellowmen... this is the gabing pangsigang >_<)

taro root

1-2 cups dried red kidney beans
1/2 cup garbanzos (chick/ugly peas)
6 pcs medium sized tomatoes
1 heaped tsp chili powder
1 level tsp cumin powder
1 level tsp cinnamon powder
500-600 gm ground beef
2-3 tbsp cooking oil (olive/vegetable/palm/coconut)
salt and pepper to taste

Special Prep
3 days before the day you plan to cook your chilli, soak your dried beans in room temperature water with 2 tbsp of vinegar (organic or apple cider will do nicely). Just make sure that you let the water cover your beans completely with a margin above since beans usually swell up to 3 times their dried size. Don't panic if you see scum or foam forming in the surface and that it smells weird, it's fine, just leave it there for 48-72 hours. The scum formation are actually anti-nutrients like phytic acid that inhibits mineral absorption which can be detrimental to our health. Plus, soaking the beans eliminates the gassy aftermath of a bean based dish. Just make sure to rinse thoroughly before using.

Method
1. Chop the carrots, chilies, celery, onions and garlic. Chop them to bits.

2. Put all the veggies in a large casserole, add the oil then saute in medium heat till caramelized. Or until soft with little brown edges.

3. Meanwhile... drain the beans, the garbanzos (chick peas). Chop the taro and the tomatoes into half inch cubes. I forgot to take a picture of the taro and tomato huhuhu.

4. Back to the pot... Add the chili, cumin and cinnamon. 
5. Add the ground beef. Saute.
6. Add the tomatoes, beans and peas. Add 1 cup of water. Stir. At this point, you will have to add salt or if you prefer, you can use fish sauce. This will be according to taste. By the way, try to make it a little bland since the stew will have to be reduced so water will be evaporating. There is a risk of a too salty chili if you salt it too much. Remember, you can always correct the taste right before serving.

7. Simmer till the beans are soft enough for your. This will also depend on your taste. Leave it a little longer if you want the beans to be really soft. This can be anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours.

8. Serve with freshly cooked rice. 

Note: This goes well with yogurt or cream cheese. So while it's piping hot, you can put a dollop of yogurt or cream cheese and blend it in. It adds to the creaminess of the whole dish.

And left overs can be devoured the next day. That is, if you have any :)

Serves: 6-8 people if eaten with rice 

Happy weekend Y'all!

Homemade Tocino: Sweet Mornings, Candied Pork

Tocino... any Filipino can tell you that this is one of the traditional and all-time favorite "ulam" or viand especially for breakfast. Looking up the actual definition of tocino, the web tells me that it is simply "bacon" in Spanish as it is usually the belly or the bacon part that is cured with salt and sugar with a little salt peter for color.

I haven't been able to create entries to my blog recently due to my Dad taking the laptop with him to Manila. Unfortunately for me, my own laptop is dead as dust so I have to settle with borrowing my Mom's. Without a laptop to work on, I usually spend my hours in the net just watching videos and looking stuff up. And after stopping by the grocery on my way home, I bought a hunk of pork shoulder with no idea what to do with it. I was just attracted to the beautiful pink color pork gives you when it's really fresh.

And thus commenced my latest preoccupation: meat processing!

I remember my Dad attempting to make this same dish when I was I think 6 or 7. He was boiling meat in I don't know what, but it smelled really weird, like dried fish crossed with vinegar or something. I made a comment to my aunt later on, which had her laughing out loud causing my newborn cousin to cry. With that memory in mind, I still liked eating Tocino, but simply veered away from attempting to make it from scratch. But with the around 600g of pork shoulder on hand with nothing to do, I tried to think of what to do with it. It was too little to brine to make ham, too little to make pot roast either. Then it hit me... TOCINO!!!

Okay, before I lose my trail of thought again, the recipe:

Ingredients

500 g pork, sliced 1/8 inch thick (if you don't know how to slice fillets like me, just ask your butcher to slice it "tapa" style)
1/2 cup sugar (I recommend muscovado since it adds a special flavor)
1 tbsp salt (2 tsp if you're using iodized)
10 ml Soju (or any clear liquor you can get your hands on)
1 tsp achuete powder or beet powder (for a tint of color)

Instructions

Curing
1. Mix sugar, salt, soju and (achuete/beet) powder in a bowl.
2. Coat the slices evenly.
3. Store in a zip-loc or plastic container (please do veer away from reactive metals like iron or aluminum as it might react with salt and the alcohol and might pose a risk to your health)
4. Cure inside the fridge for 24-48 hours. The longer you leave it, the more candied the flavor, especially the fat. I recommend putting it in the fridge to avoid culturing bacteria. Traditionally cured in room temp, but since we are not using salt-peter, there is the risk of developing bacteria in the meat. Curing it in the fridge takes care of this thus avoiding the need to use salt peter.

Cooking
1. After curing, you can either cook the meat or repack it for freezing and storage.
2. Tocino is traditionally cooked 2 ways, you can fry it in oil, or boiling.
3. Frying, pretty straight forward. Heat oil, put tocino in, fry till golden brown.
4. Boiling, put the tocino in a pan, put just enough water to cover the meat halfway.
5. Boil till the water evaporates and toast a little.
6. Serve with hot rice.

 

 Post Script:

Happy Father's Day to my Dad and to all Daddies out there. Thanks Papa, for from your blood, I inherited the skill and love of cooking.

Me and my dad. Awwwww :')

Kimchi Girl's Adapted Kimchi Recipe

And at last! The Kimchi (or kimchee, kim chee, gimchi how ever you would like to spell it! :3) Recipe! Now wouldn't it have made more sense for me to have posted this first rather than, what, the fourth or fifth recipe in this blog? Hahaha! I know, I know. But I have come through and finally, the kimchi or kimchee recipe that everyone (I hope or I wish? lol) has been waiting for.

And being the OC (obsessive compulsive) nut that I am, I have to discuss what kimchi is first. And according to out handy dandy wikepedia:

Kimchi (Korean: 김치 Korean pronunciation: [kimtɕʰi]; English pronunciation: /ˈkɪmtʃi/), also spelled kimchee, kim chee or gimchi, is a traditional fermented Korean side dish made of vegetables with a variety of seasonings.[1][2][3] In traditional preparation Kimchi was often allowed to ferment underground in jars for months at a time.[4] It is Korea's national dish, and there are hundreds of varieties made with a main vegetable ingredient such as napa cabbage, radish, scallion, or cucumber.[5] Kimchi is also a main ingredient for many Korean dishes such as kimchi stew (김치찌개; kimchi jjigae), kimchi pancake (김치부침게; kimchijeon), kimchi soup (김칫국; kimchiguk), and kimchi fried rice (김치볶음밥; kimchi bokkeumbap).

In short, it's a spicy and sour vegetable preserve... kind of... well that's one way to put it or to describe it to someone unfamiliar with such dishes. (You wouldn't believe how many types of description I have to come up with when trying to sell this to my office mates >_< )

Being that I am from the Philippines, and located in one of the smaller cities in the country, trying to follow the strict traditional recipe is, I would say, tricky. Mainly because some ingredients are hard to come by and sometimes I'm just too lazy to go to the next town just for grocery shopping. The first time I tried this, I really had to cheat or improvise on some of the ingredients. In case you're interested, here is one traditional kimchi recipe I stumbled into the time I was still experimenting >> Authentic & traditional Kimchi recipe!

Before we get started... Just one last segue:

Gochugaru Flakes/Powder

Gochugaru (고추가루, also transliterated as go choo ga roo) is red chili pepper, dried and ground into a coarse powder. In preparing Korean dishes, just about any ground chili pepper may be used as a substitution, but be aware that several varieties of chili powder (such as cayenne pepper) can be quite a bit hotter or milder than gochugaru, and so it is advisable to add in small amounts until the desired level of spiciness is reached.

I just wanted to acquaint those who are not familiar with it. And I say it's the most important ingredient since this is what makes it, well, kimchi. I haven't personally tried using cayenne or paprika or any other type of chili powder so if you definitely can not find a Korean deli or grocery, then as what was mentioned, add in small amounts to control the taste. You can always add more but it's near impossible to fix excess.

Alright! I hope the beautiful red color of the gochugaru flakes above whetted your appetites!

Kimchi Girl's Adapted Kimchi Recipe

Ingredients:

3 kg Napa Cabbage
200 g radish
200 g carrots
3-5 stalks green onion
200 g onions
200 g garlic
75 g ginger
1 cup salt
1/2 cup Glutinous Rice Flour (or mochiko flour. sweet rice flour, sticky rice flour)
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup fish sauce
1 cup gochugaru flakes
3 cups water

Method:
1. Cut the napa cabbage into 1-2 inch slices:

2. Wash the sliced napa twice and drain. Prepare a big enough container for the salting of the leaves.

3. Sprinkle the salt over the leaves and mix.

4. Let it sit for 30 minutes, mix and turn over leaves. Repeat 3 times (this should take a total of 2 hours)

5. In two hours, rinse the cabbage leaves once and drain.

6. While waiting for the leaves to salt. let's prepare the paste. Mix the 1/2 cup glutinous rice flour (aka galapong or giniling na malagkit), the 1/4 cup sugar and 3 cups of water in a sauce pan. Heat and stir until the mixture comes to a boil. Cook for about 3-5 minutes. The resulting paste should look like porridge. Set aside to cool.

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7. Next the spices. Skin the garlic. Now you can do this manually by hand, or you can check out this video in youtube to save a little time (click here). Skin the onions and cut into cubes. Skin the ginger and cut into cubes.

8. Put the onions, garlic and ginger in a blender or food processor. Add 1 cup of fish sauce (a.k.a patis for most Filipinos). Blend for 1 minute or until pureed. Set aside.

9. Chop the carrot, radish and green onions into strips. I use this slicer I bought from a hyakuen here in the Philippines. (A hyakuen is a 100 Yen shop in Japan, in the Philippines you know this as the everything 88 or 99 stores that sells Japanese products ranging from hair care to kitchen wares to toys and basically anything under the sun. They even have snacks.) Set aside.

10.  Add 1 cup (or you can add more chili flakes depending on how hot or spicy you want your kimchi to be. 1 cup has a nice bite to it, but feel free to go hotter :3) to the pureed onion, garlic and ginger. Mix well.

11. If the paste is cool enough, add the chili and spices puree. Mix well.

12. Mix in the chopped veggies.

 Now we prepare the actual kimchi. The steps above were simply preparation steps :3

Important notes* Try to wear gloves when mixing the kimchi. The oils from the chili and spices can cause serious irritation when they come to contact with skin. In case you do get some on your skin, simply rinse and pour a little milk on it.

1. Grab a handful of cabbage leaves and put it into the container.

2. Add a scoop of paste

3. Mix thoroughly.

4. Continue the process until all the cabbage has been coated with the paste. Push down on the kimchi to squeeze out air bubbles. Ferment the kimchi for 24-36 hours. Or, alternatively, you can eat it fresh. Though I myself prefer to have it fermented first. :3

And there you have it folks! The Kimchi recipe I use for the kimchi I sell to people at the office.

I hope you enjoyed this and please leave a comment if you have questions, requests, and what have you.

Happy Eating!