Life
Tuesday Night Dinner Party: Not Too Vain to Make Quickie Chili
Inauthentic and just one dish, but it’ll have to do.
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My mother served dinner pretty much every Sunday night to family and friends. Even when she didn’t have time to make anything elaborate, it was a given that the house would be full of extended and unofficial family. One of the most common dishes she served was a totally non-Texan version of “chili” that her mother had used as a frugal entertaining dish when she was a child in postwar-era Maryland. I’ve written about this chili elsewhere, and in my mind, those Sunday dinners have lingered as one of my favorite childhood memories: my father holding court, teasing and debating everyone at our satiny wood dining table, my friends and me running off after dessert to the play room for TV and unsanctioned wrestling matches.
So on a recent Tuesday, when my mother was still in town, we had some friends over who have a particularly fine appreciation for her and her heavily footnoted brand of storytelling. I made her chili. It’s the kind of thing that has been a quickie meal for my family, but I’ve always hesitated to serve it to friends. Maybe if it seemed a little more “authentic” I’d do it more often, or maybe I’m too vain—the chili is what it is and involves little or no finesse from me to perfect it. I think one should never underestimate ego as a motivation for cooking: I was the youngest by a stretch in a family of hyper-articulate people, and I learned early on the attention I could get by cooking a decent meal. I certainly wasn’t going to beat my sister in a debate.
So of course, even though I was trying to stick to a minimalist agenda, I had to tweak the chili here and there. I ditched the elbow macaroni (which traditionally stretched the meat in the chili to serve a crowd; in truth I cooked it separately and fed it to the kids), cooked up a batch of pinto beans from dry instead of using a can, and made a few bowls of toppings—cilantro, cheese, avocado, etc. The kids of course would have none of it besides the cheese, not even little Adele, who at a year and a half has recently realized she has the power to refuse greens just like her big brother. She zoomed off to the Tupperware drawer, and he to his room, aka Lego wonderland. As my mom recalled the bombing drills she did in her one-room schoolhouse as a little girl during World War II (they were never to lose track of a special wool blanket that was supposed to protect them in case of conflagration), we dunked into the chili, which really was quite nice. Nobody seemed to mind the one-dishness of it all.
Quickie Chili (feeds a lot)
1 tablespoon oil
1 ¼ pounds ground beef
2 medium onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, sliced
3 tablespoons powdered ancho chili powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
1 can whole peeled tomatoes, ground in a food mill or blender
½ the tomato can of water
2 cups or I can cooked pinto beans, drained
Hot red pepper flakes, if desired
In a large non-reactive soup pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the ground beef and spread out in a single layer. Cook, chopping and stirring, until the meat is lightly browned. (It will give up a fair amount of juice, which will then evaporate.) Stir in the onion and garlic, and cook until the onion softens and becomes translucent. Then stir in the chili powder, cumin, and salt and stir frequently for a minute. Add the tomato puree, the water, and the beans and cook for about 30 minutes until everything mellows together and is yummy. Taste and add more salt, chili, cumin, or hot pepper if desired.
Garnishes/mix-ins (totally optional)
Cooked elbow pasta
Shredded cheddar or jack cheese
Cilantro sprigs
Chopped red onion
Sour cream
Braised chard
What the kids ate/rejected
Elbow macaroni, cheddar cheese, braised chard, strawberries, turkey
Sara Dickerman has written about food for Slate, the New York Times Magazine, Food and Wine, Bon Appetit, and Seattle magazine.
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