Welcome back folks!

Have I got something special lined up for you today.

The general idea was to get this recipe and a couple of links to previous posts up in time to give you a selection of food options to prepare in time for the Superb Owl!

Many of you will remember way back in the times of the ancients on a mother blog to remain nameless that our forefathers (and foremother) would post recipe ideas for the readers to try in time for the game. One year that I remember fondly they had a collection of various chili recipes. There were about 7 or 8 recipes and most of them looked fantastic. I also cooked and sampled and adapted a couple of them. The post can still be found with a simple Google search but I’ll be fucked directly in the butthole if I’M gonna link to an article on UPCOX. Fuck those guys.

Sorry, I digress.

We’re gonna make some gatdamn chili today folks. Motherfucking chili.

You regular readers will no doubt know of my passion for a good chili. Hell, my very first Sunday Gravy was a chili tepin recipe that I still consume on a near daily basis. I’ve linked to that one many times in the past and I ALWAYS have a container of it in my refrigerator. It’s essentially one of my “secret” ingredients in many things I cook.

Quick note on chili tepin: Back in the day when I first started making this stuff  – early 2000’s  – it wasn’t always readily available. And tracking it down was tougher than trying to score a quarter ounce of indica (fuck off it’s legal now). Nowadays? Amazon! Although I still buy mine at the local mercado.

Was this my only delve into the chili cornucopia (chilicopia)? Shit no! Remember this big old pot of deliciousness?

That’s some authentic Texas chili!

That one is probably my favorite.

If you gaze at the banner picture again some of you may be thinking “Hey that looks like it could be a green chili!” And you are close to being right. Remember back when we did some homemade chile verde?  Now that’s a green chile. “Verde” means “green” in Spanish. While today’s recipe has green peppers in it it is not technically a verde. This one has been called “white chicken chili” but I refuse to discriminate along color lines in my posts.

Before we get going I’m going to be giving you a couple of techniques that you can use while attempting other dishes. Both of these techniques will serve you well going forward. One is fire roasting of the peppers and the other is toasting and grinding of spices. Toasting and grinding your own spices is a fucking awesome technique and SHOULD be used as frequently as possible.

Now let’s get back to today’s recipe.

I was a late bloomer when it came to making this dish since I’ve always been so focused on red chili dishes but do not discount this dish. It’s quick, easy, uses simple ingredients and holy fucksticks is it delicious.

Chicken chili!

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium onion diced.

1 jalapeno roasted and diced with seeds removed

1 pasilla pepper roasted, diced with seeds removed.

2 cloves of garlic minced.

1 to 1 and 1/2 pounds of boneless skinless chicken (breast or thighs or some of both) cut into cubes or chunks.

1 teaspoon of chili powder

1 teaspoon of cumin seed toasted and ground

1/2 teaspoon of cayenne

1/2 cup of corn – can be frozen or canned doesn’t matter that much

(2) 15 oz cans of cannellini or Great Northern beans

14 ounces of chicken stock. If you have homemade use it but store bought is fine.

1/4 cup of heavy cream.

Salt and pepper to taste.

First thing we are going to do is roast the jalapeno and the pasilla pepper. It’s really damn simple and just rounds out the flavor of the peppers.

Hopefully you have a gas stove with burners because I haven’t roasted peppers under a broiler. Guess you could roast them nicely on a charcoal grill but anyway. Place the pepper directly on the burner and roast until charred all over. I would use a pair of tongs instead of your fingers as the crazed person in the photo is doing. When the pepper is nice and charred place it into a paper bag along with the other roasted peppers, close the bag and let them rest about 10 minutes. This makes it easier to remove the skins. If you don’t have a paper bag just rinse the peppers under some cold running water to remove the charred skin and it will be fine. Slice off the stem of the peppers, slice down the middle, remove the seeds and dice.

I like to prepare my items in advance since you don’t want to start cooking, chop up some shit, go back to cooking etc. We’ve also mentioned the technique of Mise en Place before so I guess I’m giving you another technique.

That’s my onion, peppers, garlic and spices ready to go.

Now about them spices: I have the chili powder and cayenne on hand and ready but I thought I would bring an additional level to today’s dish by toasting some cumin seeds. If you have ground cumin I guess you can skip this step but I really want to encourage toasting spices and freshly grinding them because the flavor is so much more intense and the aroma will just knock your goddamn head back. We’ve toasted spices before when I made za’atar.

Get a small pan and over a low-medium heat add in the cumin seeds.

You’re going to toast these for about 3-4 minutes while shaking the pan around to move the seeds until the seeds are toasted brown and just starting to smoke a bit. You will also notice by the smell. Oh fuck does that smell fantastic.

Remove the seeds from the pan and let cool for about 10 minutes.

Now about the grinding of the spices. “But yeah right, I don’t have a massive $500 dollar industrial spice grinder and I would only grind spices a couple of times a year!” you may say. “Well fuck all that!” I would reply. Pick up a cheap and efficient coffee grinder for about 15-20 bucks and you are all fucking set. If you already have a coffee grinder I would go ahead and get another just for spices. You may not enjoy your cumin-flavored coffee. Yes, go ahead and make your “cumin” jokes now ya bunch of hoodlums.

Here’s the coffee/spice grinder that I use.

Put the toasted seeds in the grinder and pulse a couple of times. That’s it.

Smell that? Damn right there is a difference with freshly toasted and ground spices. A huge difference.

One last tiny bit of prep before we get started, take about half of one of those cans of beans and mash those little fuckers. This will help thicken the chili right near the end of the cooking process. Check this shit out!

I don’t have a hand masher so I used my bartender’s muddler to mash the beans. It’s now a multi-tasker!

Fuck it let’s get cooking.

Get your pot or Dutch oven on the stove and heat the burner to medium. Add in the peppers and onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.

Next add in the chicken chunks and cook until no longer pink inside, about 4-5 minutes. Next drop in the spices and some salt and pepper.

Chicken stock is the next thing to jump in the pool, then add in the corn and the unmashed white beans. Let’s get that to a nice medium-low simmer and let ‘er roll for about 20-30 minutes or so. Stir every 4-5 minutes.

Next we are going to add in the mashed beans and the heavy cream and bring back to a simmer. Maybe 5 minutes.

Get your ladle out and spoon some of this deliciousness into a bigass bowl. Here is where you can garnish as desired. Cilantro? Sure! Sour cream? It would work here. Cheese? Pretty much mandatory. Tortilla chips crumbled? I sure as shit did! Hell, I’ll even let you add avocado if you want but you know my opinion on that.

Once again here is how I served mine with a 4 queso blend and some sharp cheddar along with some tortilla chips.

That’s a tall boy of a citra hop heavy IPA that my son-in-law made that’s sitting there in the background.

While discussing this dish at work some folks asked if it could be served over rice or noodles to make a “feed a big family” meal out of, and you know what? You really could. I just dove in exactly as it is pictured.

You can also buy one of those store made rotisserie chickens and skip the browning of the chicken part of the recipe if you wanted to make it really easy. That would work just fine.

Let’s summarize this dish. It’s got that roasted green pepper note sitting there in the background, the spices are aromatic and forward without being overwhelming, the corn and beans are singing the background vocals but the lead goes to the savory, hearty rich chili itself. The chicken is tender and will absorb the flavors of the rest of the dish perfectly.

This recipe was the shit!

If you want to bring up the heat level I would add a bit more cayenne or even better, fire roast a serrano pepper or two to keep the fire roasted element going strong.

See what you have here? A wide array of chili options just in time for the game. You’ve got a Texas chili, chili verde and even a chili tepin recipe to fuck around with in addition to this incredible chicken chili we made today.

Grab yourself a shit ton of beer, some chips and dips and maybe some wings and get ready to throw a mean motherfucking Superb Owl party!

Enjoy the game everyone and as always…

FUCK NEW ENGLAND!