This week, the tables at the local Japanese farmers’ market are overflowing with fruits, vegetables and especially garlic. My friend Atusko’s landlord is a farmer, and he gave her a bag containing 100 single cloves of garlic “seconds” that he could not sell. She passed the garlic on to me and it inspired tonight’s dinner.
With the autumn breeze dictating a sudden wardrobe overhaul, the season’s first steaming bowl of chili was like a promise of warmth on the cold nights to come.
Layers of flavors meld together for satisfying bite and a lingering, medium-spiced aftertaste. Red table wine brings out the hues of the tomatoes and beef, cumin seeds and crushed red peppers offer added mini bursts of flavor, and large chunks of garlic take the spotlight as they are slowly simmered to soft, mellow perfection.
My serving of Garlic Harvest Beef Chili was placed next to a paddle of rice and topped with shredded sharp cheddar, a dollop of real sour cream, and enough cilantro to make it obvious that fresh herbs make my heart sing.
Sarah’s Garlic Harvest Beef Chili
Serves 12
15 minute prep time
1 hour 15 min stove-top cook time
2 lbs London Broil, cut into 1 cm. cubes
2 medium onions, chopped
100 whole, peeled cloves of garlic (I cut some mutant cloves down to normal size!)
2 tbsp cooking oil
1 tsp kosher salt
26 oz. can of tomato sauce (I used Hunts Garlic & Herb)
30 oz. of diced tomatoes (or two, 15 oz. cans) with juice
5 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp oregano
1 heaping tbsp cumin powder
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 cup dry red table wine
2 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup masa harina
water to make masa harina slurry
Steamed rice (5 cups dry)
Toppings (optional – see below)
Toppings:
Sour cream, sharp cheddar cheese, chopped fresh cilantro, and a bottle of hot sauce for the daddies and the shirtless egg-muscled sons who are trying to impress them
Directions:
Prepare the rice in a way that it will be done at the same time as your chili – about 1 hr 15 minutes. (I love my Zojirushi rice cooker because I can prepare the rice way ahead of time and it will keep the rice warm for whenever I need it.)
In a Dutch oven, sauté the onions and whole garlic cloves in cooking oil until soft. Add the cubed beef and cook until browned. Stir in salt, spices, tomatoes, tomato sauce, wine and water. Stirring occasionally, simmer, partially covered, for an hour or until the beef becomes tender.
Mix a little water with the masa harina to make a slurry (if you do not add water, you’ll have masa chunks in your chili… yuck.) and stir the slurry into the chili. Cook for another five minutes until the chili thickens slightly.
Place a scoop of rice and then add a serving of chili next to it, overlapping the rice slightly. Down the middle, sprinkle with cheddar cheese. Top with a dollop of sour cream. Sprinkle with cilantro (and hot sauce if you’re a show-off).
Will you share your favorite autumn dinner recipe with me?
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If you love chili and are hungry for more…
Chili Nation is my favorite chili cookbook. The recipes are easy to prepare, yet please the palate of a chili enthusiast. The authors chose recipes from each state, and the very interesting story behind each recipe is recorded in the book. A few years back, the men in my husband’s Bible study took turns making a different recipe every week and brought them to share. All were excellent! My staple weeknight chili recipe from Chili Nation is the Tigua Indian Definitive Bowl of Red. It’s a spicy beef chili without beans. It gets its deep reddish color from several tablespoons of chili powder.
Whoa, that’s A LOT of garlic, girl! I’ve never done rice with chili so we’ll have to give that a try. We have the same rice cooker now. ; ) Let’s see…my favorite autumn dinner…hmmm…got it!
Oven Baked Beef Stew
1 Tbsp. oil
2 lb. stew meat, cut in 1½” cubes
1/3 c. flour or 1/4 c. cornstarch
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. marjoram
12 oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained
10 oz. beef or vegetable broth
1/2 cup dry red wine
2 cups cube peeled potatoes or red potatoes (unpeeled) my note: I like redskins the best!
1 cup sliced celery
4 medium carrots, sliced
3 small onions, quartered
1/4 tsp. pepper
Preheat oven to 325º. Heat oil in 4 quart Dutch oven over medium. Brown beef cubes in oil. Add flour, salt, garlic powder, marjoram and pepper. Stir in tomatoes, broth and wine; mix well. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Add remaining ingredients, mix well. Cover; bake for 2 hours or until meat is tender, stirring twice during baking.
My notes:
-can add fresh green beans and/or frozen corn during the last hour of baking.
-can also thrown in a couple of handfuls of barley to thicken the stew
-this freezes beautifully
-beer works well if you don’t have red wine
-I also add mushrooms when I have them on hand.
Thanks for the recipe, Susan! Can you believe they don’t sell celery in the store here?!! I have all the other ingredients though. Will add some celery seed for a hint of celery flavor :)
You probably don’t need to add as much garlic as I did – but if you like roasted garlic, the more the better :)
I love roasted garlic, but it’s the family that objects to too much garlic including the Mr. Funny thing…last night he was having a snack of hummus w/roasted eggplant & pita after returning home from a grad class. What he thought was an unpulverized chickpea in his mouth turned out to be a clove og garlic! He was not amused. (I was though!)
I love roasted garlic, but it’s the family that objects to too much garlic including the Mr. Funny thing…last night he was having a snack of hummus w/roasted eggplant & pita after returning home from a grad class. What he thought was an unpulverized chickpea in his mouth turned out to be a clove og garlic! He was not amused. (I was though!)
It is really lovely to discover great new inspiration for tasty recipes and also easy to understand techniques to make them. My partner and I prepared this for supper at the weekend. The whole family loved it, I’ll be preparing it on a regular basis now.