Fall is in the air, and I can start getting exited about oversized sweatshirts, football, cool mornings, bonfires. And chili.
As a kid, my mom’s chili was supreme. It was actually her mom’s recipe. My Mamaw passed when I was pretty young, so I think it meant a lot to my mother to keep the recipe going in the family. Chili at a friend’s house never measured up to Mom’s chili.
In highschool, I worked at the local grocery store. As fall began, I started seeing the chili fixings coming across my checkout line-tomato paste, chilis, seasoning, beans, crackers. And everyone seemed excited to get home and start dinner.
Fast forward to my 20s, and I was dying for some good chili. My mom text me a picture of the handwritten recipe card from my childhood, and I made my own pot in my little apartment.
I followed the recipe exactly, no deviations. But for some reason, it never tasted quite as good as my mom’s. But as my own cooking style started to evolve, so did my chili. I found myself more of a rogue, measurements-are-suggestions kind of cook. I’d play with a certain flavor, or adjust based on what was in my pantry at the moment.
Eventually, the recipe took on a life of it’s own, but the basics remained. Start by sauteing the meat, onions, and garlic in the bottom of the pot. Then add the tomatoes, juices, and beans. Noodles go last or they get soggy. Basic chili.
One day, I was determined to make a pot of chili, but grossly underestimated the canned tomato products I had on hand. So I pulled apart the pantry to see what I could do. Tomato soup? Sure. No juice? Blend up the extra diced tomatoes! Salsa? Surely a little bit won’t make it taste too much like tacos.
And you know what? It always worked itself out. Sometimes the pallet varied, but never out of the normal range for my chili. There are, however, a few guiding principles that govern my chili making- regardless of what version of tomato I may be using.
Garlic and onions, and lots of them. This is my favorite flavor, and I don’t think you can have too much. Plus it smells heavenly.
I’m not picky about the kind of beans I use- whatever I happen to have. Sometimes it’s all kidney beans, and other times you wonder if it’s a 7 bean soup or chili. But I always include the juice from the can of beans. It builds out the liquid without adding plain water at the end.
Noodles. I know this is controversial, but I will go to my grave insisting that real chili always has noodles.
If at all possible, I try to make my chili the evening before. Sitting in the fridge overnight truly blends the flavors and brings out the best of them.
Over the years, I did make an adaptation for the benefit of my husband, who does not like chunky tomatoes. It’s a texture thing. So I blend up the diced tomatoes to take away that ‘chunkiness’.
Several years ago, my nephew was leaving for college, and his mama was trying to gather some recipes to send with him. I felt extremely honored when he requested Aunt Kala’s Chili. If my Mamaw were still with us, she would have been proud, I’m sure of it.
But I couldn’t come through for him. My “recipe” had become more of a process than a recipe, and I had no way to write it down. I couldn’t start to record measurements, since I did it all by sight, texture, and color.
Even without the recipe, my chili still holds a special spot in his heart. He recently graduated college and is back home for the summer. When we told him welcome to dinner at our house while he was home, his response was “Only if you make chili, Aunt Kala!”.