Wait?

Sunday Gravy?

During football season?

Imagine your and my surprise!

Hi Folks!

This all came about since Balls and I were involved with a food bet during the first week of the college football season. That week Senor Balls and I made a friendly wager with our very own Redshirt.

Redshirt took his Cincinnati Bearcats to beat the UCLA Bruins while Balls and I, being L.A. residents repped the local crew. Balls is an alum of UCLA while I just live nearby and have many friends and family members who currently, or formerly, work(ed) on the UCLA campus.

What a dip shit bet that was!

The Bruins football team sucks all of the ass and will for the next few years until Chip Kelly can get a collection of “his people” on the Bruins team. It is a transitional year and considering the fact that they just lost to FRESNO FUCKING STATE the transition is going to be long and fucking arduous.

As a result of losing the bet, Balls procured some actual Skyline chili and made a post about it, while I promised to make the chili from scratch. Once the chili was produced we had to use it to make some Cincinnati style chili. While Balls went for the three way I decided that I needed to at least try the full fucking Monty and I went with the full fucking 5 way chili experience.

How did it turn out?

Was I horribly mutated as a result?

Did my colon receive 3rd degree internal burns?

Did I need to replace all of the plumbing in my bathroom?

Did I inconceivably turn into a Bengals fan?

Was it maybe even pretty fucking delicious?

Let’s find out shall we?

Herein lies the result of the experiment.

Things got a little weird.

I should also mention that this is a TWO DAY PREP for the finished meal. Adjust cooking times as needed.

I browsed all over the intranets to come up with a knockoff recipe of Skyline chili. I found MANY versions and knowing my taste buds, my likes and dislikes and my preferred flavor profiles I adapted my own recipe from about 5 source recipes.

This was what I came up with.

Cincinnati Style Chili ALA yeah right.

32 ounces of beef stock.

2 pounds of 85-15 ground beef.

2 onions – minced or diced fine.

4 cloves of garlic minced.

1 15 oz can of tomato sauce.

1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce.

2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar.

1 ounce of unsweetened chocolate – that is correct.

1/4 CUP of chili powder.

1 teaspoon of cayenne.

1 teaspoon of allspice.

1 teaspoon of cumin.

1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves.

1 teaspoon of cinnamon.

1 bay leaf.

1/2 tablespoon of salt.

1 teaspoon of black pepper.

for service

Cooked spaghetti noodles.

A shit ton of cheddar cheese.

1 can of dark red kidney beans – optional.

Finely diced onion – optional.

 

Trust me on this one folks because there is a lot of unusual shit about to happen.

Look at this collection of ingredients!

First?

Grab your first 2 ingredients, the beef and the beef stock.

Pour the stock into a large pot or Dutch oven and bring to a boil. Just the stock. All by itself.

When the stock is at a steady simmer add in the raw ground beef.

 

C’mon man! I said trust me on this shit. Granted this seems weird as fuck. “Where does the fat go!?” you may scream in horror. Relax. Relax, we’ll get around to that.

You are going to simmer the ground beef in the stock for 30 minutes. It will look something like this.

No we haven’t added in our spice blend yet. Let’s talk about that a bit.

The original recipe for Cincinnati chili was invented, according to legend, by Nicholas Lambrinides, a Greek immigrant, which explains the unusual seasonings and the unusual preparation method. There is next to nothing similar to Southwest chili or to Texas style chili going on here. This is it’s own damn thing entirely.

Was I tempted to fuck around with the amounts of chili powder, cumin and cayenne while making it? Hoo-fucking-boy was I ever tempted but I left it alone.

I didn’t add in jalapenos or chili peppers despite my brain screaming at me to do exactly that.

What I did instead was made this as easy as possible on myself by breaking out the goddamn heavy fucking kitchen hardware.

And people?

I used the entire goddamn arsenal.

The texture of this chili is more of a “sauce” instead of a chunky chili so the first kitchen tool employed was my bad ass immersion blender.

Just to clarify, this was after the 30 minutes of simmering but before I added anything else to the pot. I also let the chili cool down a bit instead of having molten hamburger soup flying around my kitchen.

Safety first kids!

The next thing to add to the pot now that the meat has been sauced and is back on the burner is our vegetation.

Feel like fine dicing two large onions?

Fuck that, neither did I. Bad ass kitchen toy number two to the rescue.

Rough chop the onions and put them in the food processor. Pulse a few times and we are fucking golden.

Dump the onions into the pot. Well actually fuck it, let’s just add in everything else to the pot.

The question that is driving you all nuts right now is “Did you really put chocolate in this?”

Damn skippy I did. Look here’s more proof!

This intriguing concoction will now sit on a low simmer for Three. Fucking. Hours. UNCOVERED! The extended cooking time allows the chili to reduce down from this.

To this.

Give this an occasional stir during the cooking process and be sure to keep the heat LOW while simmering.

While this was cooking eldest brother right asked “Are you cooking Christmas dinner?” It is indeed an aroma similar to what you may smell around the holidays and very much unlike the smell of simmering Southwest chili. Greek in origin, remember?

An additional note: it is standard practice for the cook to stir and sample while the dish is cooking. It’s not just standard practice, it’s motherfucking MANDATORY to make sure you’re doing your business correctly. I just want to say that this dish changes flavors constantly while cooking. The first taste you have will be VERY different than the final outcome.

Stay the course!

After the three hours are up, let the chili cool down and we will place in a container for overnight refrigeration. You should remove the bay leaf at this time.

How does this taste as a stand-alone chili at this point?

It’s really fucking good actually. Very unusual but the spices have blended together and you can start to see the allure of this right about now.

Storing the chili overnight will allow us to skim off the fat that will collect on the surface after refrigerating overnight.

See! We addressed it!

The next day is all easy as pumpkin fucking pie.

I actually made the finished meal on a football Sunday and it was simple as piss to put together.

Heat up the chili and cook some spaghetti noodles. Place said noodles on a plate.

Most of you should be familiar with the ordering nomenclature of Cincinnati style chili. You know 3-way, 4-way etc. Is a plate of spaghetti then called a 1-way?

Shit no!

That’s called a plate of spaghetti!

The first “way” we reach is by adding the chili over the noodles thusly.

Now we have a “2-way!”

Neat!

If you were to top with cheese right here? That’s the 3-way but I figured if I’m going all the fucking way at all, I am all the fucking way in. Let’s load this goddamn thing up.

Next:

Spaghetti, chili, cheese and onions OR beans gives you a 4-way.

All of the above added?

Now we’ve got the full fucking 5-way chili experience.

Hammer! Dropped!

The dish is usually served with oyster crackers which I DID! It can also be served with hot sauce, which I did! My usual Red Rooster Louisiana sauce. Add as much as you would like.

Finally to address the eating method.

What? More fucking food rules?!?

Just the one more.

Eat this with a fork like you would a pie or an enchilada. What I’m trying to say is no “twirling” of your noodles!

Pretend it’s a casserole or some fucking thing.

It’s actually easier to eat that way anyway.

Final verdict!

I thought it was damn delicious.

My dear old Ma used to make a spaghetti sauce that was more brown than red so this felt a little familiar. The notes of cinnamon, allspice, clove and chocolate all play really well together. The salt of the cheese ties everything together. The oniony savoriness worked great. This was really fucking good!

Will I make this again?

Yes sir! I sure as fuck will.

Actually I had some leftover chili in my freezer and I decided to make some “coney” dogs with it this past weekend.

To build a “coney” proceed thusly:

Toast a hot dog bun and apply some mustard.

Always toast your buns folks. Next take a freshly grilled dog, Nathan’s in my case and place in the bun.

Chili goes on the dog. Our chili.

Finally, top with onions (optional) and the non-optional cheese.

Serve with copious amounts of beer. Repeat as desired.

For the record, it also settled in the digestive tract with no issues whatsoever.

Welp, I didn’t expect to be back this soon but a goddamn bet is a goddamn bet.

Oh yeah, if you remember my season finale a couple of weeks ago? I mentioned in it that I’ve done 99 menus for you good folks since starting Sunday Gravy.

Today is number 100!

Holy shit! A milestone!

Thanks as always for being there people.

Now back to your regularly scheduled football content.

PEACE!