Ron's Hamburgers and Chili

[TheTravellers]

As an aside, I made this chili over the weekend and while not traditional, it was one of the best I've ever had.

https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-chili-recipe

We do recipes from Milk Street a lot and they sometimes make us go "Ugh, that's a lot of ingredients (and steps)", but they're usually worth it. This recipe, however, puts Milk Street to shame - that's an insane list of ingredients (probably 3-4 times the ingredients in our chili recipe)!!! Sounds really good, though.
Where did you get all the different chiles and Marmite (Homeland and Winco don't carry all those, I don't think)? Also, did you actually grind the coffee beans extra-fine (we don't have a coffee or spice grinder, just a mortar/pestle)?

[jerrywall]

As an aside, I made this chili over the weekend and while not traditional, it was one of the best I've ever had.

https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-chili-recipe

That's interesting. Even if there's stuff I won't use, I always like picking up various tips and techniques to try. And, this has already motivated me, and I've already given the wife a heads up to swing by the butcher and pick up some tri tip for some chili this weekend. I did think it was interesting that they added ground coffee beans directly into the coffee. I use coffee too, but I brew up a strong pot of it, and then use a cup of it, without the grounds. I do use cocoa powder instead of chocolate as well.

[sooner88]

We do recipes from Milk Street a lot and they sometimes make us go "Ugh, that's a lot of ingredients (and steps)", but they're usually worth it. This recipe, however, puts Milk Street to shame - that's an insane list of ingredients (probably 3-4 times the ingredients in our chili recipe)!!! Sounds really good, though.
Where did you get all the different chiles and Marmite (Homeland and Winco don't carry all those, I don't think)? Also, did you actually grind the coffee beans extra-fine (we don't have a coffee or spice grinder, just a mortar/pestle)?

I had purchased the dry chilis awhile back at Chileno's Meat Market when Trumpodo's was there. I drew the line at the anchovies and Marmite as it was hard to find and the grocery bill was adding up. For the coffee, I just bought enough espresso beans for the recipe at Whole Foods and used their grinder to get an espresso grind and it worked well. It was one of those recipes that was time consuming, but if you follow the steps in the recipe it is well worth it.

[sooner88]

That's interesting. Even if there's stuff I won't use, I always like picking up various tips and techniques to try. And, this has already motivated me, and I've already given the wife a heads up to swing by the butcher and pick up some tri tip for some chili this weekend. I did think it was interesting that they added ground coffee beans directly into the coffee. I use coffee too, but I brew up a strong pot of it, and then use a cup of it, without the grounds. I do use cocoa powder instead of chocolate as well.

The major difference in this technique vs. others I've used is making the paste vs. adding dry ingredients. The coffee grounds are added to chicken broth / dry chilis along with the other spices in a blender, so I think using that process it helps to incorporate everything a little better. There are a lot of ingredients, but each one is in relatively small amounts... it just helps to build the layer of flavors. Cooking the veggies in the beef fat from the short ribs, and then simmering the chili with the bones helped to add even more flavor. I'm not sure if I will follow this exact recipe again, but the technique is one that I may carry on.

[Roger S]

Kenji Lopez is a food genius. I've used a lot of his sous vide techniques over the years. So I have no doubt that his recipe is amazing.

This may sound sacrilegious to the chili purists, and I've always been pretty pure about my chili, but I now have one secret weapon in my chili arsenal....... Instant Pot

It will make the cheapest, toughest, piece of meat melt like butter in your mouth and it's ready in about 45 minutes instead of the 3 hours it used to take me...... And the #1 reason I now make all my chili in the instant pot..... It has blown away any chili I ever made simmering on the stove top for 3 hours like the competition cooks do.

And it looks like maybe we need to start a thread about chili because we seriously hijacked this one!

[corwin1968]

We used to eat at the Santa Fe & NW 178th location on a regular basis. My wife always got the sausage burger and I always got the Mexican burger. It was always good but somehow always left us unsatisfied, like we were hungry again an hour later.

This was the first place we discovered Melinda's Habanero sauce and my wife let me in on her secret of mixing it (or any other hot sauce) with ketchup.

[Roger S]

I like everything I've tried at Ron's except the sausage burger.... It just has a strange taste to me even though I love sausage and ground beef.