YEA! Another Food Related Post!!!

When it comes to beans they’re three realities…
1. Beans that come in a can that you can find at the grocery store sometimes aren’t as good as hand cooked beans…
2. Hand cooked beans are special, but beans that you can buy in a can are really convenient.
3. When all there is uncooked hard beans in a bag in your country, you wish you could buy canned beans regardless of “hand-crafted chili” or not.

Some people are obsessive about their chilies. Some say that chili shouldn’t have beans in it, some say that chili should be spicy (aka nuclear) hot, some think of a chili as a bean stew. For me, chili is what you do with beans after they’re cooked and you don’t want to mash them. Perhaps there’s a little more to it then that…  but generally I don’t take chili seriously… that said, there’s not a reason why I shouldn’t try hard to make a good chili… right?

This night’s recipe is what I call “what should be in my chili that’s under 2,000 yen ($20)”

Beans technically can be purchased anywhere if you search the isles for them, but where I live the best place to get them is at an outdoor vegetable stand outside the Mutsu Chou Sato Supermarket. There you can grab beans, veggies, and other ingredients for a reasonable price.

So here’s what all I bought (note the canned tomatoes were bought at Universe).

A bag of $3 black beans
Large Onions x2
Green Peppers x3
Canned Tomatoes x2 cans
Garlic 2x cloves
Ground Beef
Olive Oil
Steak Spices (any meat spice works)
Ground Pepper
Hot Sauce (whatever you can get for me that’s Tabasco)
And Taco seasoning (not pictured)

Now before you get rolling you have to soak the beans in order for them to expand and soften a little. This process usually takes about one full day of soaking to do. One time I soaked beans for two days (because I forgot about them) and they turned out super great! But that’s probably not advised. This round, as per advice from a friend here in Mutsu, I cooked the black beans in a pot for about 10 minutes then a drained them, added new hot water to them (till all the beans were submerged) and let that sit for 24 hours.

The next day after work is when you should get busy. Before taking an afternoon nap, or hitting the john, you should put that pot of beans on the stove and get them started because beans should cook for about 1.5-2 hours. Now for me my apartment has a propane range that burns hot quickly… I used this range to get the pot boiling, but then transferred it over to a portable one burner butane stove to cook. That’s ONLY because the butane cartridges cost next to nothing compared to two hours of burning propane here.

With the pot boiling away with beans in it… You got about two hours of relax time.. Take a nap, hit the john, watch some t.v., beat that crazy level on your play station, or whatever. I decided to add a little bit of oil to my beans along with some table salt. It keeps beans from sticking and slightly salted beans taste better to me. Periodically you should be adding hot water to your beans as the water steams off the top- when you do that it‘s probably also good to stir it a little.

Once about one and half hours have pasted and you’re famished, cranky, and tired it’s time to slice & dice some of that eye-burningly good onion and those seedy peppers. One onion I sliced into small chunks and the other I sliced into rings… your choice there. The peppers I just sliced into rings.

Once that’s done, pull out that garlic, smash and slice it into bits. Add some oil, pepper, and salt to it and then mix it real good into the raw ground beef.

Start the stove and put the burger mix into a heated pan. Cook up the ground beef till it’s brown then add some of that taco mix to it. Once it’s seasoned, and browned you can go ahead and add the canned tomatoes to the pan.  This sauce you’re making is going to be the bulk of the chili taste.. Any seasoning, salt, pepper, taco mix, or hot sauce you can add to it to make it as rich and chili-like the better… Even if you over do the sauce it’s ok because once you added it to the beans and veggies it’ll bland out a little.

So while your sauce is cooking it’s time to add the veggies to the beans. We’re going to cook the onions and peppers in with the beans till everything (beans, peppers, and onions are soft). By that time, when everything is soft enough not to crunch when you eat it, pull out a strainer and strain about ½ to 2/3rds of the water out. Add the meat sauce and mix the whole thing up.

The last part is fine tuning that chili till it meats your taste standard of chili. If it’s bland… more salt & pepper… If it tastes like stew rather than chili add more taco seasoning, if it’s too weak then add more hot sauce… the main thing here actually isn’t the taste… It’s whether those damn beans are soft enough. I always keep checking to see if the beans are soft enough… if not I’ll add a little water and let it sit some more till it steams off.. Soft beans folks.. That’s why I envy those with canned beans…

And there it is.. Chili.. Let it cool down on low or off.. Put it in a bowl and add cheese and corn chips and you’re rolling…

Take that Nally Chili that takes 4-5 minutes in the Microwave to cook.

~J out

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