Chicken & White Bean Chili
This one is a favorite of mine. When I think of “comfort food,” this is usually the first place my mind goes. Personally, I don’t buy into the toxic fandom that is: Chili Snobbery. It’s chili. It’s a dish that came out of poverty. Mine has beans. Put whatever you want/have around the kitchen in yours. Unsubscribe if you’re offended by that.
INGREDIENTS
3 dried Chilies (Ancho, Guajillo, whatever)
3 dried Chipotle chilis
2 tsp Cumin seed
2 lbs Boneless/Skinless Chicken Thighs
28oz can Crushed Tomatoes
Diced Onion
Diced Red Pepper
Diced Green Pepper
White Beans (about 1/2 lb dried beans, or a 14 oz can)
1 pint of Beer
RECIPE
Chop and Toast the dried peppers with the cumin seed. Grind them up to make a chili powder. Grind up your chicken thighs (or just roughly chop them up if you don’t have a food processor) and coat them in 1 tbsp of the chili powder.
Brown them in a dutch oven on medium high heat. Add the vegetables and another 1 tbsp of chili powder. Cook for another minute and deglaze with the can of Tomatoes (if you don’t have crushed tomatoes, you can also just crush whole tomatoes with your hands). Rinse out the tomato can with 1 pint of Beer and add it to the pot. Bring it to a simmer.
Soak the beans for 4-6 hours in water and drain them. Beans are a tough thing to cook. I usually let this chili simmer all day, and that’s usually enough to cook the beans right in the chili, but sometimes it’s tough to say. If you don’t have time to cook this all day, you can just use a can of white beans, and it’ll be just as good. Or just leave them out for all I care! This is your chili, not mine.
Like I said; I like to let this chili cook all day. At least 4 hours. I’ll let it simmer on low for 2 hours with the lid off, let it thicken up naturally, and then I’ll throw on the lid and simmer for another 2-6 hours. If it gets too thick, add some water (or more beer!) If it gets too thin, take of the lid for an hour or so and let it reduce some more.
My rule of thumb for chili is this: Time is your most important ingredient. Put whatever you want in it… but make sure you give it lots and lots of time. At the very very least… give it an hour. (Of course, there’s no way you’re going to cook those beans through in an hour if you’re using dried beans.)
