Our jalapeño plants have just about reached the end of their pepper production for the year, and we found ourselves with a nice collection of peppers to do something with.  All told, we ended up with somewhere in the neighborhood of 165 – 175 peppers from five plants that didn’t start producing until late in the season.  We anticipate more next year.

After having used 30 or so while cooking, we were left with about 135 peppers to do something with before they went off.  I have a dehydrator, and that is the best choice for preserving the peppers long term… you can store them in an airtight container almost indefinitely, they can be re-hydrated for use in recipes, or ground up and sprinkled on like salt.  But what about making chipotles?

I used this as an opportunity to experiment with a little project I’ve wanted to work on for a little bit.  I have a gas grill with lots of acreage, and it’s everything I need for most of my outdoor cooking needs.  I’ve never desired a full-blown smoker as I don’t feel I’d get as much use out of it as I’d spend on it, and storing it is another consideration.  What I wanted was something that was cheap, I could store in a small space, and could easily pull out on the few times I wanted to smoke something.

Enter the “ghetto smoker”.  It’s a concept I first discovered while watching Good Eats, and I’ve seen a lot of different adaptations around the web as well.  Basically you take a hot plate and a cast-iron skillet and put it in a “something” (garbage can, large box, a large terracotta pot with another pot inverted over it, etc), and add wood chunks/chips/sawdust to it and turn it on, then place a rack over it and close the whole thing up and go, occasionally adding more wood to it as it runs out.  That’s the gist.

I wanted to spend as little as possible on the whole shebang, otherwise it wasn’t worth my time or money.  I have a large grill, so there is my smoking chamber already accounted for, and it’s now a multitasker.  I picked up a cheap-ass hot plate at the grocery store for $7, and an 8″ cast-iron skillet at Goodwill for $4.  Done and done.  Wood for smoking can be had at Home Depot year round.

A few notes on making and using a ghetto smoker:

• Whatever you’re smoking must be at an elevation above the smoke/heat source or you’ll get no love.  This elevation cannot be too close to the heat/smoke source or you’ll cook too quickly.
• Wood chips soaked in water for 30 minutes or so will start smoking quickly, generate more heat, but will be exhausted in less than an hour… wood chunks however will last considerably longer — soaked will last up to 3 hours but are slower to catch and start smoking, dry will catch and smoke right away, but only last about 60 – 90 minutes.  The trick is to refuel with soaked wood before the old wood is completely used up.
• Eliminate as many air-drafts as you can to keep heat and smoke in, but make sure there are some small holes to let some smoke out.
• Keep a probe thermometer near whatever you’re smoking to monitor the ambient temperature.  You want this to be between 170 and 200 degrees (depending on what you’re smoking).  Adjust the wood, or the location of the smoked goods to change this.
• If you’re smoking meat, put a second probe thermometer into the meat to monitor the internal temperature.  There are no set times to follow, temperature is the only way to get it right.
• Anything that is in the smoke will get smoked.  Thermometers, grills, etc will get covered and stained by a layer of smoke.

So, armed with all this I smoked about a third of my red, ripe jalapeños.  It took about 8 hours, and lots of fiddling to figure things out, but it worked, and worked well.  I pronounce the grill as a ghetto smoker a success… with the caveats being that I cannot get the smoked material directly over the smoke as it’s too close, but to one side and just above, and I now have a very old towel that is dedicated to the task of draping over the back of my grill to close off the gaps that are there by design to let smoke out.

I’ll continue to use this as I see fit to try out some other smoker projects, and if I find myself enjoying it more and more, I’ll make the minimal investment in a $40 smoker from Home Depot.  Now that I have muddled through discovering the basics of what is involved in the process, I have found that I don’t need anything elaborate or huge, just something that satisfies the needs.

Even so, it’s been a fun and cheap project.

I’ve been wanting to find a good, tried and true chili recipe for a while… a full-bore, proper chili that didn’t use chili powder or canned chili sauce.  The kind of recipe that’s handed down from person to person, not found on the web.

I finally got one.

A coworker friend of mine had been boasting about his chili, and how his wife had this dynamite chili sauce that was made from scratch, and well, that sounded about right to me.  The problem was that they hadn’t written anything down, they just made it “by feel”.  When I asked for the recipe, he used it as a good excuse to make a batch of chili and take down notes.  Those notes ended up in my inbox on Saturday.  I cobbled together a more formal recipe from what he sent and promptly went shopping.

Armed with this recipe I set to putting it all together, starting with the chili sauce.  The sauce is simple, and flavorful, consisting of sauteed onions, dried peppers and broth simmered for the better part of an hour, then blended to within an inch of its life then strained.  It’s thick, dark and powerful stuff… precisely as it should be.  This is the key to a good chili — this is the make or break part.

The second part, the actual chili, is straightforward as well.  Cubed stew meat, after being browned off, is combined with sauteed onions and garlic, seasonings and some water or broth, then allowed to simmer until tender.  The rest of the ingredients are added, as is the chili sauce.  Adjust the seasonings and heat to suit your tastes, then cut the heat to low and abandon all hopes of eating it for at least 5 or 6 hours.  Allow the whole melange to simmer slowly and thicken up, further tenderizing the meat and letting all those flavors co-mingle and mature.

Your patience will be rewarded.

Eleven people demolished 6½ quarts of chili, 2 loaves of fresh bread, and a pot of rice in record time.  It was worth every minute of bloating that came afterward.

The recipe can be found HERE.

I know there are some heat-hounds reading this, and I tell you now that this is a “½ alarm” chili that is suited for the widest range of pepper tolerances, so you’ll want to spice it up to suit your own tastes.  I strongly suggest doing it during the chili sauce phase.  You can either leave all the pepper seeds in to boost it a bit, or substitute hotter chilies in the “Optional Additional Peppers” section (habaneros or scotch bonnets perhaps?).  I used fresh jalapeños, half of them with the seeds intact to get the mild heat I like.  The ancho and cascabel chilies are necessary to get the right basic flavor and texture, so leave those be.  Finding the right balance of other peppers is your problem, not mine.

Chili Sauce:
4 C water
3 TBS chicken/beef bullion powder or cubes
½ onion (chopped)
8 dried cascabel chili peppers (seeded & rinsed – save the seeds)
8 dried ancho chili peppers (seeded & rinsed – save the seeds)

Optional Additional Peppers (choose one):
4 dried japones chili peppers (seeded & rinsed – save the seeds) – commonly used in Chinese dishes
4 jalapeño chili peppers – fresh or dried (whole, seeds and all)

Chili:
1 TBS oil
1 onion (chopped)
8-10 cloves garlic (minced)
2 LB cubed stew meat
¼ TSP ground cumin
16 OZ diced tomatoes (if using canned, get the “no sodium added” variety)
32 OZ cooked kidney/pinto/whatever beans (optional)
Water
Salt & pepper (to taste)

Good chili is a slow process — don’t rush it, the ingredients will build upon each other.  Let it simmer low and slow all day, and you’ll be glad you did.

Beans are optional, if not using beans you’ll use more water or broth, and you’ll want to substitute more meat in place of the beans.  Pre-cook pinto or kidney beans (or used canned) and go sparingly on the salt and other seasonings — less is more in this case, usually salt, pepper and onions.  Cook till tender.  Drain freshly cooked beans and save the water, this will be used later. If using canned beans, drain and discard the water.

Sauté the onions for the Chili Sauce, then combine the remaining Chili Sauce and Optional Additional Pepper ingredients and bring to a boil, then reduce to medium heat and simmer until the chilies become tender (approximately 30 to 45 minutes).  Transfer to a blender or Cuisinart and puree until smooth and saucy.  Strain to get the pepper skin pieces out.  Set aside.

Sauté the onion and garlic in the oil until clear.  Add the meat and brown, adding a pinch of salt and pepper during cooking. Add water, enough to just cover the meat.  Add the cumin.  Cook until the meat is tender,  maintaining the water level to just above — approximately 1 to 1½ hours depending on the cut of meat you use.

Once the meat is tender add the Chili Sauce, drained beans (if using), and diced tomatoes.  Add juice from beans to desired consistency, substituting chicken or beef broth if the beans are omitted (approximately 1½ C).  Bring to a boil then reduce the heat to medium and simmer.  Taste, and adjust salt and pepper as desired (approximately ½ TSP of each).  If you want to add more pepper spice, add the saved seeds to taste.  These will add heat quickly, so add a little at a time, boil for 10 minutes and taste again, repeating as necessary (start with 3 big pinches of seeds).  Check the consistency of the chili, it should be slightly thinner than what you are aiming for, add broth as necessary.

Reduce the heat to very low and simmer for 30 minutes.  The chili will be ready to serve at this point, however the longer and slower you cook it, the better it will become. Reduce heat to very low and cook this for several hours, stirring frequently.  6 hours of slow cooking makes a thick, hearty, flavorful chili.

Makes between 3 and 3½ quarts.

NOTES:
If  you know approximately how hot you want the chili to be, you can add the appropriate amount of chili seeds into the Chili Sauce at the start of cooking so they can be blended and strained later to eliminate whole seeds from the final chili mix.

When the chili sauce it done simmering, before you strain it you can remove as many of the cascabel chilies as you can and scrape the pepper meat from the skins and return the meat to the pot.  The skins don’t break down at all during cooking, and resemble thin plastic sheeting.  They’re easy to pick out as they float and are bright red.

The amount of bean juice/water added to the chili will depend greatly on how long you intend to simmer it.  The volume above (1½ C) is based on a 5 – 6 hour simmer.