Collin County Living Well Magazine September/October 2018 | Page 66

CHILI WITH CHOCOLATE
I
used to wait tables in a vegetarian
restaurant many, many years ago,
and one of the items on the menu
was Cashew Chili. I would say
about one-third of the customers
would look at the menu, then look up
at me, and ask – “Are there really ca-
shews in the Cashew Chili?”
It was hard to respond to that. Al-
though the answer “Yes” seemed pretty
obvious (at least to me), it was hard to
say “Yes, the Cashew Chili really does
have cashews in it” without sounding
like a wise-ass. Thinking about it now,
I probably could have come back with
a more interesting retort and guess I
should think of another one for this chili
recipe, because it is made with beans,
and likely to raise some hackles.
Therefore, I would like to officially rec-
ognize that real Texas Chili does not
have beans in it.
But when you have beautiful Rancho
Gordo beans in your kitchen, and you
don’t live anywhere near Texas, I took
it upon myself to cash in one of my
dwindling ‘free pass’ cards you get
when you live overseas, and made a
bean-based chili. (And it would be silly
to write a recipe for chili that didn’t
have beans in it if you’re writing a
blog post about beans.)
I’ve been wanting to make chili for
ages and when I was sent a copy of
The Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean
Grower’s Guide, that I happily wrote
a quote for that’s on the back of the
book, which is more of a handbook
to using and identifying beans than
a cookbook. It’s arrival prompted me
to open one of my precious packag-
es of Rancho Gordo beans and hit the
butcher shop.
One of the few things I usually bring
back to France are these beans, which
I order online (there is a flat-fee for
shipping anywhere in the states so I
can order as much as I want—come
to think of it, I wish I could order some
more of those “free pass” cards just as
64
By David Lebovitz
Reprinted with permission
easily…), and the bean packets
fit neatly in and around all
the unfilled spaces in my
precisely filled suitcase.
My French guests have nev-
er seen beans like these and
are always amazed by their
swirling, variegated designs.
Names like Good Mother
Stallard and Yellow Eye don’t
exactly translate—nor does
‘hackles’—but I’ve never had
one complaint in my years of
cooking them.
Normally you buy stewing meat
for chili and unfortunately my butcher
happened to be closed, so I went to
the supermarket and the beef I bought
was a bit tough. So the pieces that I
sautéed were too large and I ended up
trimming them down after I browned
them off, before adding them to the
pot.
Use whatever chiles you like or what’s
available. I was reading up a little on
chili and it seems like it’s a bit of a
fallacy that chili is supposed to be fi-
ery-hot. Or at least there’s some con-
tention, which chili seems to bring out
in people. (I feel the same way about
Caesar Salad and Salade Niçoise.
And bagels.) My chiles weren’t la-
beled as to what variety they were—
just piment fort—or ‘strong chiles’,
and I found them reasonably mild, but
very flavorful. Dried and fresh chiles
vary in heat so you can adjust the in-
tensity to your liking by choosing ones
that you like.
Since I veered from tradition already
with the beans, I thought about add-
ing some chocolate, which gives the
chili additional depth of flavor. A few
months ago I was doing a cooking
demonstration in a Paris department
store, and I like to expose people here
to artisan American chocolate, since
they draw a blank when you mention
American bean-to-bar chocolate.
I had some chocolate labeled “bak-
COLLIN COUNTY Living Well Magazine | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018
David Lebovitz’s recipe can be made in any
six-quart pot or casserole but is best when
made in a Raymond Loewy-designed
coquelle by Le Creuset.
ing chocolate” from Patric and when I
passed out samples, after chewing on
the tablets for a few seconds, every-
one suddenly scrunched up their faces,
which is when I realized I’d given them
unsweetened chocolate to try. No won-
der people have misconceptions about
American food.
So apologies to the French cooking
class participants who I duped by acci-
dent, to Texans for putting beans in my
chile, and former customers (and ev-
eryone else) who thought I was being
a wise-guy in my past. But this was a
really big hit around here, with French
and American friends, so I think I’ve
made amends.
o
Notes on dried beans: It’s best to use the
freshest dried beans you can find, which
sounds a bit like an oxymoron. But the dried
beans you buy might have been sitting in
the store for several years before the arrive
in your kitchen. So try to get them from a
place that sells them relatively quickly. Steve
Sando of Rancho Gordo recommends using
beans that have been dried within one year, if
possible. Any dried beans over two years old
may not soften.
If you live somewhere where the water is
mineral-rich (hard) like it is in Paris, the locals
add a pinch of baking soda (sodium bicar-
bonate) to the cooking water, although when
I told Steve that we did this in France, he
shook his head vigorously “no”.