Dish of the month (March 2022): Chilli/chili (including plant based)

kaneohegirlinaz said:
Not to answer for detroitdad , but I know alot of folk who only eat meat that they've hunted and dressed ... deer, fish, opossum, squirrel, etc.
Venison is delicious as Chili and Burgers too😋
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I acquired the venison from my father. He is one of those people that practices this. He hasn't purchased meat in over 3 years. Whenever I make the trip south I usually bring back a cooler full of ground venison, steaks, roasts, ect.....
 
Today’s the day for Cincy-style chili (which isn’t really chili, but that’s beside the point):

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And just so you know I wasn’t lying when I said I’m the world’s slowest prepper-that took me 50 minutes to get together, and that included using the food processor to mince the onions.
 
Now, the first thing to know about Cincinnati chili is that when you first sit down in a local chili parlor, you’ll immediately be served a little bowl of oyster crackers, and a bottle of hot sauce, so let’s do this right:

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You’re meant to dot each one with the sauce and enjoy it as a little appetizer of sorts:

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And everyone loves when they get a cracker with the top broken in, so it can hold even more hot sauce:
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Ok, the next thing to know about Cincinnati chili is that it's order in ways. That's how it's listed on the menu, so that's how you order it.

This will be a little out of order, but first up is a 2-way (buttered spaghetti noodles topped with chili sauce):

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Next is the most popular way, a 3-way (spaghetti, chili, and a mound of shredded cheddar cheese):

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You'll have to forgive the state of that plating, because MrsT tore into it before I could get a picture.


Now you have to imagine a little for the 4-way (spaghetti, chili, beans or onion, cheese), because there's no cheese on these two yet:
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And finally...the 5-way (spaghetti, chili, beans and onions, and cheese):
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A couple of notes: the standard is to have the cheese served on top, room temperature, and not melted, which allows the diner to stir it together or not, but it is possible to order any way with the cheese on the bottom, so it gets a head start on melting.

Also, that cheese is not the same cheese they serve in the parlors. That's pre-shredded, which I usually don't buy, and it's got that anti-caking crap on it. At Skyline (and other places), cheese is shredded in-house, and the shreds are extremely skinny and extremely long, to match up with the spaghetti.

One other thing is that the sauce is never mixed in with the spaghetti ahead of time, but always served on top when ordered. Most chili parlors operate off the open kitchen concept, where diners can see the entire kitchen in full operation, so nothing is pre-plated.

The seasoning profile is a blend of chili powder, dried oregano, cayenne, cinnamon, salt & pepper, cocoa powder, ground allspice, and brown sugar, so it's heavy on that Mediterranean flavor. Most people say that if you like kofta, you'll like Cincinnati chili, but I don't know if that's true, because I love kofta, but I don't like Cincinnati chili, and my wife doesn't like kofta, but loves Cincinnati chili. Go figure.

The two main chili parlors in Cincy are Skyline and Gold Star. Both are local chains, and there is definitely a rivalry between them and their patrons. The original Cincinnati chili parlor, Empress Chili is still open as well, started in the late-1940's and still going strong. There are a host of other chili parlors here as well (Blue Ash Chili, Price Hill Chili, Dixie Chili, Camp Washington Chili, etc).

Traditionally, the other thing you do with Cincy chili is serve it as a part of a coney dog plate - we'll do that tomorrow because I have some more left over.
 
Well TastyReuben I learned more than I ever thought I would about Cincy chilli. Its a sort of hybrid, it seems, between spaghetti bolognese and chilli. I'd certainly eat it if you put it in front of me - preferably the 5 ways.

TastyReuben said:
The seasoning profile is a blend of chili powder, dried oregano, cayenne, cinnamon, salt & pepper, cocoa powder, ground allspice, and brown sugar, so it's heavy on that Mediterranean flavor.
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Why do you say heavy on Mediterranean? Apart from the oregano and possibly cinnamon that doesn't sound very Mediterranean to me.
 
Morning Glory said:
Well TastyReuben I learned more than I ever thought I would about Cincy chilli. Its a sort of hybrid, it seems, between spaghetti bolognese and chilli. I'd certainly eat it if you put it in front of me - preferably the 5 ways.



Why do you say heavy on Mediterranean? Apart from the oregano and possibly cinnamon that doesn't sound very Mediterranean to me.
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Those flavors are very Mediterranean/Greek/North African to me. Maybe we just have a different interpretation of that region? This tastes a lot like kofta, which I would count as Mediterranean.

This is from Wikipedia:

Cincinnati chili (or Cincinnati-style chili) is a Mediterranean-spiced meat sauce used as a topping for spaghetti or hot dogs ("coneys")
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And the recipe I used is from America’s Test Kitchen, and their blurb says:

This Midwestern diner specialty is an unusual marriage of American chili and Middle-Eastern spices.
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Considering it was brought here by Greek immigrants, “Mediterranean” seems apt.
 
I think I´d agree with MG, to a certain extent.
Typical Mexican spicing would include oregano, chile/hot peppers, and maybe cinnamon, cocoa powder and sugar (dark, raw sugar called "panela" or "papelón" in other parts of Latin America. A Mexican dish might also include beans.
Mediterranean might include oregano and, in certain parts (North Africa, for example?) hot peppers and cinnamon, but the use of cocoa powder, sugar and beans in a dish like this would probably be unusual - not impossible, but unusual.
The spaghetti is evidently Italian, and the Greeks were Greek:D:D
This dish is just a wierd fusion of as many cultures as you like:D:D.
And as a footnote, I trust Wikipedia about as much as I trust Trump, Putin or Nicolás Maduro...
 
Here’s a little further information (also from Wikipedia):

Cincinnati chili originated with immigrant restauranters who were trying to expand their customer base by moving beyond narrowly ethnic styles of cuisine. Tom and John Kiradjieff emigrated from the village of Hrupishta (today's Argos Orestiko), fleeing ethnic rivalries and bigotry in the fallout from the Balkan Wars and World War I, in 1921. They began serving a "stew with traditional Mediterranean spices" as a topping for hot dogs which they called "coneys" in 1922 at their hot dog stand located next to a burlesque theater called the Empress, which they named their business after. Tom Kiradjieff used the sauce to modify a traditional dish, speculated to have been pastitsio, moussaka, or saltsa kima to come up with a dish he called chili spaghetti. He first developed a recipe calling for the spaghetti to be cooked in the chili but changed his method in response to customer requests and began serving the sauce as a topping, eventually adding grated cheese as a topping for both the chili spaghetti and the coneys, also in response to customer requests.
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The Mediterranean flavor profile I’m referring to is the sauce, not the spaghetti or the beans - it’s the ultimate fusion dish, after all. A frequent descriptor is that it’s a Greek bolognese.
 
Planning on chili for dinner -

Base to be: Stewed tomatoes, pinto beans, beef. I am thawing something lapeled "beef fajita meat" which I assume is skirt steak - when it thaws further, I'll be able to know. I plan to chop it coarsely for this dish.

Other than onions, not sure what else will be added into this dish.
 
Mountain Cat said:
Planning on chili for dinner -

Base to be: Stewed tomatoes, pinto beans, beef. I am thawing something lapeled "beef fajita meat" which I assume is skirt steak - when it thaws further, I'll be able to know. I plan to chop it coarsely for this dish.

Other than onions, not sure what else will be added into this dish.
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Um, some form of chilis, perhaps?

CD
 
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