A Chili Cookoff...The Blog Techs Take On It, Then Mine

This is the finished chili having been smoked for 4 hours. First the Blog Tech will tell his view on the contest.


BT: A month or so ago, I wrote about a chili cook-off I had attended in Syracuse, New York. I expressed my feelings on why certain chili is no good-strange aftertaste, bad consistency, absence or excess of heat-and what makes certain chili superior to other chilies.
Recently, another chili challenge came into our lives. My sister's boyfriend's workplace sponsored a chili cook off of its own. He enlisted my mother to make the best chili she could.
My mother has always made good chili, mind you. At the time of the Syracuse chili cook off, I remember thinking that her usual chili recipe was as good as any of the chili made that day, if not better.
However, once you receive a chili challenge, you cannot simply make the typical chili. One must consider one's chili recipe and figure out how to improve on its strengths.
The most important aspect of chili is its depth of flavor. Chili contains meat, tomatoes, spices, and peppers as its main ingredients. If their ratios are correct, every taste bud should be activated: sweet, savory, salty, bitter.
The fun thing about really good chili is the way that its flavor will change as you eat it. It will start sweet, then turn savory, at which point the salt and slight bitterness of the spices will present themselves.
The way the spiciness manifests itself can vary greatly, however. In my opinion, this is what separates the good chili from the great chili.
Lots of chili will forgo spiciness altogether. This is a mistake. It's chili. It is meant to be somewhat spicy.
Some chili will be immediately spicy. It'll attack the tip of your tongue, which makes it difficult to taste the rest of the chili. This defeats much of the potential of a chili eating experience.
The best kind of spiciness presents itself last, at the edges of the back of your tongue.
At the same time, there can be a kind of spiciness that results from using too many spices. This can be kind of gross, and tastes like you emptied a packet of chili powder on your tongue.
My mother got the spiciness just right, which is impressive seeing as how she does not particularly like spicy things. She also used various other atypical ingredients, such as various parts of a pig, and a whole cup of coffee.
At the chili cook-off, we ultimately came in third. The guy whose chili came in first apparently enters lots of these things, and we got a sample to try.
I realize I am biased, but I think the contest was fixed! The winner's chili was actually too spicy for me, which is really saying quite a bit. It would seem that most people don't like food that's too spicy. At this point the Blog Tech has finished and I will pick up.
JAZ: I don't particularly like chili. But it is a wonderful dish to make using my favorite cooking skills. Layering, or depths of flavor. In the above picture you can see that I have added unsweetened cocoa powder and beef demi glace'.

I have never entered any sort of cooking contest but I couldn't say no to my daughter's boyfriend and god knows I love to cook for the masses.


This chili was a 3 day process.


I used pigs feet and ham hocks. Pigs feet add so much flavor and they are also used as a thickening agent. Much better and more flavorful than thickening with cornmeal as most recipes call for. Ham hocks also add lots of flavor and a bit of smokiness too.


I used 4 different peppers removing the seeds and ribs from the hottest ones. This allows the heat and flavor from hot peppers to permeate the chili but it mellows the heat which allows you to taste the depth of flavor. As in good Indian cooking, you want dishes like this to awaken all your taste buds to the same level. That is the ultimate goal in achieving the best flavor in these layered dishes.

I was very excited to compare the winners chili side by side to my own. I don't care about contests and I am always looking to improve my recipes so this was a good opportunity. The winners is on the left above and mine is on the right. They look pretty similar. I never use chili powder in my chili. It is just a mix of spices made up by a spice company. I like to use my own combination plus I toast them first to give them more flavor. The winner used chili powder which gave his a bitter aftertaste. It was not bad. He also used cayenne which made it far to spicy and quite difficult to get to the other flavors. To each his own but we all liked mine better. The winner has a reputation for entering these contests all the time plus I think no one believed that my daughter's boyfriend so much as stirred our chili!!! We all had fun and our chili won the crowds vote. The 5 judges picked the winner. Not a spoonful of ours was left. I wish I had a chance to sample #2!



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