July 8, 2021
It’s been way too long since we’ve made Chili, so that was our first major production at The Views. We’re doing 4 pounds of ground beef, which needs a lot of chili.
We had to find a Mexican shop to get any variety of chilis at all. We found a good one, Tortillas Lagunas in Longmont. They carry a lot of different chilis, all the Don Juan stuff is theirs. In the right hand half sheet pan are, at the top Ancho Pasilla, in the middle Chile Guajillo, and at the bottom Mulato chili. In the middle quarter sheet pan is Negro Pasilla and in the left the hot Chili de Ristra.
The rest of the mise en place, the ground beef and onions are simmering in the dutch oven at the left, the tomato sauce is behind the cutting board. The spices are, from left to right, granulated garlic (this works because the dish has to simmer for a long time), Smoked Spanish Sweet Paprika (pimentón), Mexican Oregano and ground Cumin.
Yes, we are at the views!
The very start of cooking the dish!
While the beef and onions cook, the chilis are prepped. This, believe it or not is the very first part of the prep - cooling the spice grinders. They are going to run for a long time and we’ve melted one before. So, we freeze them for an hour or so to get them cold enough for all the time they’ll be running. They go back in between chili types as well.
The end result of all the grinding! That’s more chili powder than we’ll need, but the chef needs some extra to get the balance right. This time Bill needed 4 Tbs. of the Ancho Pasilla, 2 Tbs. of the Guajillo, 4 Tbs. of Mulato, 4 Tbs. of Negro Pasilla and 1 Tbs. of the hot Chili de Ristra.
You simply have to grind the chilis the same day, chili powder is oddly delicate. We ground some, put it in a freezer and just 2 weeks later you could easily tell that it had lost a lot. The ground stuff in the supermarket is simply too dead to make this dish work.
Here’s Livingstone helping Bill to seed the Negro Passilla.
Here’s the kitchen from the breakfast bar side.
Here’s the kitchen from the business side. Yes that is actual commercial Vulcan gear. A charbroiler at the left, the thermostatically controlled griddle in the middle and a 4 burner hot plate at the right.
The finished big batch. This is probably 5 or 6 meals, so most of it will be frozen. The final ingredient that goes in last is a bit of port. It adds sweetness, fullness and complexity.that really takes this to the next level. (No, its not being cooked on the charbroiler, we are using it as a cooling rack)