Nightcrawler’s Chili

The making of chili isn’t to be entered into lightly. Yea, anyone can open up a can of Hormel, or throw a a couple of beans and meats together, or add a bunch of hot and spicy sh!t in with some burger. Burning the roof of your mouth off is for amateurs. The real way to make a chili? It’s a combination of ingredients, time, love, and a sense of taste. Not taste itself, but a “sense of taste”. With that in mind, here is, in my opinion, a recipe for the world’s best chili.

Cathy recently wrote her recipe down as a contribution for a Chili Cook-Off our running group, MVH3*, has every year. The Cook-Off is in memory of a a member, Fernando (aka PoopDeck), who passed away from cancer nine years ago. He started the MVH3 Chili Cook-off fifteen years ago, and it continues to this day. Due to Covid, this year’s Cook-off was held virtually and included an online published cookbook. Here’s Cathy’s, (aka Nightcrawler’s) recipe….

Nightcrawler’s Tasty Chili

1. Grab an onion and dice it, put it in a frying pan with a little olive oil and sauté it.

2. Add a pound of hamburger and a pound of ground sausage. Buy your ‘burger from the local grocery story, but drive to Roy’s Market in Sperryville, VA for their homemade spicy breakfast sausage. While in Sperryville, stop at Pen Druid Brewery for a couple of beers. If time permits, also stop for a pint at Hopkins Ordinary Bed and Breakfast Aleworks. If you have had too much beer, inquire at Hopkins Ordinary if they have any rooms available for the night.

3. Add diced Jalapeños, bell peppers and Serranos to taste. Hopefully you have saved peppers that you grew in your garden last summer in the freezer. Since you probably didn’t mark the freezer bags with what is in each, grab the ones that, by looking at the unmarked bags, you know are the hottest.

4. If you have been frying all this stuff in a skillet because you weren’t thinking ahead, pull out your big pot and put it on the stove next to the skillet. Empty the skillet of onion, burger, sausage and peppers into your big pot.

5. Add to the pot, three 15 oz cans drained black beans. If you forgot to buy black beans, use whatever color you have and tell your husband this is a new and improved version of your already great chili.

6. Add one can of cream of mushroom soup (without adding water), one 10 oz can Rotel diced tomatoes and chilis, and one 28 oz can Cento whole peeled tomatoes undrained.

7. Add one small can spicy V-8. While doing so, remember it’s been a while since you’ve had a Bloody Mary. Go find vodka, celery salt, Worcestershire Sauce, hot sauce, pickle juice, a dash of beer, horseradish, a squeeze of lemon juice, and another can of spicy V-8 and mix over ice. Add a pickled okra. Sip, and add a bit more hot sauce to the Bloody.

8. While drinking your Bloody Mary, continue to cook.

9. If the chili seems too thick, add a bit of beef broth, or some of the leftover beer you used in your Bloody Mary.

10. Add to taste paprika, cumin, salt, pepper.

11. Add some Piri-Piri Chilli Seasoning you bought in South Africa, when traveling there with friends Magoo, Garfield and Mellow. Since you finished your Bloody Mary, open another beer and remember what a great time you had with the boys in Africa, and wonder how your liver ever survived.

12. Break out of your reverie and add your favorite hot sauce to the chili to your taste. Then add a couple more shakes, because you know your friends alway awards extra points for some heat.

13. Taste test many times while simmering for two hours. Drink another beer to enhance the cooking experience.

14. Serve yourself a small bowl of chili to “make sure it tastes OK”. Add a sprinkle of parsley or cilantro, sour cream or yogurt, or diced raw onions and some shredded cheddar cheese. ENJOY along with the beverage of your choice.

15. When your partner comes home later, and tells you how wonderful the house smells, look at him/her and laugh. Then say “Sorry this is for dinner tomorrow night. You can’t have any today”.

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For you purists out there insisting chili has only meat and spices, with no beans or tomatoes, get over it. This is America, by God. I’ve had great chilis with only chuck or ground meat, with meat and beans, white chilis with chicken, green chilis with pork and even a vegetarian chili that was pretty tasty. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a “Tito’s Vodka Martini” drinking Texan, who insists Chili can only be made with meat, and no beans or tomatoes.

Addendum:

• * MVH3 stands for the Mount Vernon Hash House Harriers. Cath and I have been members since 1990. Our official motto (along with other Hashes around the world) is “Beer drinkers with a running problem”. Our particular Hash group has aged a bit, and probably half of us are now walking the trails, rather than running them. As to the names PoopDeck and Nightcrawler, after you’ve done several trails with the group, you earn a nickname the group thinks is suitable for you.

• Special thanks to Cathy, my wife of 42 years, for sharing her recipe. This is pretty accurate, except for all the beer drinking. I should also say Nightcrawler rarely shares her recipes, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she left some secret ingredient out of this one. As with many great cooks and their dishes, this recipe was never written down. The other thing I’ll say is she is not rigid, and her recipes always evolve. It would be interesting to taste this chili and compare it to the ones she made 40+ years ago when we were first married.

On On! …. Roto (max)