Off to the store I went today and stocked up and then started the process about 10:30 AM. A friend of mine recommended a station on Pandora called Tag Team which is old school to decade old Rap. Run DMC, Beastie boys, Cypress Hill, Will Smith, etc.... I was rocking out and making chili just having a blast. It's to bad the family was here because I would have seriously cranked it so loud the neighbors would have been rockin!
This chili had a nice smokey flavor and was surprisingly good. The family ate it and commented on how good it was. I guess I must have got it right. I searched the internet for smoked chili and didn't really find much for inspiration and even less when I search for smoked tri tip. I know there's a big argument as to whether or not you should use beans in chili. I don't care about the argument, I like the beans so that's the way I made it.
Here's my ingredient List:
MEAT
1 package of bacon
4 pounds of smoked tri tip
2 pounds of prime rib. (this was the left over..)
INGREDIENTS
1 yellow onion
1 red onion
4-5 cloves of garlic
1 jalapeno ( I made sure to get some seeds in there for heat.)
2 cans dark red kidney beans
1 can light red kidney beans
3 cans fire roasted tomatoes ( I thought these would go good with the smoked meat.)
1 (28 oz) can of tomato sauce
1 Beer - I used the Boulevard Single wide IPA
SPICES
4 T Chili Powder
2 T Paprika
1 T Cumin
1 T Onion Powder
1 T Garlic Power
1 T Salt
1 T Pepper
1 T Ground Mustard
1/4 C Brown Sugar
2 T Sugar
So here goes.
I wanted to start with the bacon base. Normally this would mean I cut up the bacon into small pieces and fry in the large pot, but we had bacon and eggs for breakfast so I cooked the bacon earlier and reserved some bacon grease to use as the base.
This was how I fried the bacon for breakfast so I fried the bacon the same way for the chili and just reserved the grease.
Leftover bacon grease to be used to start the chili.
Step 1. Dice up onion, garlic and jalapeno and add to the hot bacon fat.
Onions softening nicely.
The smoked tri tip from yesterday. I'm gonna dice it up.
This is the diced up left over prime rib.
I like to build the base by adding the veggies, meat, and some of the paprika and chili power into this concoction. I don't have any idea if it's the way it should be done, but the way that I do it.
I just added the tomato sauce. I do that first for the canned ingredients, then in goes the beer...
After the tomato sauce and beer have been added I then add the Beans and fire roasted tomatoes.
I let it simmer on the stove for about 90 minutes and then put in the oven with a lid at 200 for the next 4 hours.
Either way you like it, it's good. I like mine with cheese and crackers. It had a great flavor.
