- A bowl of Texas red is one of my favorite comfort foods.
It's all about the meat
and all about that authentic chili flavor,
no beans let's get started.
(upbeat music)
So in Texas, everything is big and everything is bold.
So for an authentic bowl of Texas red
we're gonna use chuck roast.
I start by toasting our dried chilies
in a dry dutch oven pan on medium heat
for about two or three minutes.
Once they're nice and fragrant then move them to a bowl
and submerge them in boiling water,
using a smaller bowl on top of the chilies
helps the chilies stay submerged in the water.
This will help the chilies bloom
and become very flavorful and fragrant for our chili.
I'm using Saran wrap to seal in all of that steam.
And I'll let all of this steep for about 30 minutes.
So I chose to use chuck roast
for the really bold beef flavor
that it's going to give our chili
and the marbling in it will help with that as well.
You can clean off any excess fat that you don't wanna use.
I'm cutting into one inch pieces
for easy searing and easy braising as we cook our chili.
I'll start by adding a little oil
to our dry Dutch oven pan and heating it to a high heat.
When it comes to seasoning for this beef
it's just gonna be salt and pepper today.
It's important to keep in mind
that when you're searing off your beef,
you don't wanna crowd the pan.
That will ensure a really great crisp crust on each side.
So as you're searing your beef in batches
be careful not to turn your beef too early.
If it's still sticking to the bottom of the pan
it's telling you that it's not ready to be flipped,
when it's ready it'll remove from the pan really easily.
Once the first batch of searing is finished.
Remove the pieces from your pan onto a sheet tray
add in a little more oil to your pan
and add the second batch of beef to be seared.
For my onions I'll do a medium to small dice.
Be sure to do this a little bit quickly
so there's no tears involved.
The goal for the onions is to really just cook them
to a translucent semi-soft state.
We're not trying to caramelize onions.
I'll saute the onions first in my pan.
And all of the juices that will release
will help all of those brown bits
scrape up nicely off the bottom of our pan.
So don't clean your pan in between searing.
That's all really good flavor.
As my onions are sauteing I will mince up my fresh garlic
and I will say that using fresh garlic in this recipe
is an absolute must.
The flavor and the aromatics that you get
from fresh garlic is just unmatchable.
Mincing garlic takes just a little bit extra time
out of your day, but trust me, the more you do it
the more you'll get comfortable with your knife skills.
Next we'll add in our minced garlic.
And this tells me that once our minced garlic is in the pan
we don't want this to cook for an extremely long time.
So give that a good stir
and go ahead and add in your dried spices, Brown sugar
and dried herbs next.
Stir all of that in
so it's all evenly distributed throughout your onions.
And then go ahead and add in your Masa
and I'll let it cook for about two minutes
and turn off the heat.
I like to use Masa and my recipe as the thickening agent
because of the sweet flavor that it gives versus flour.
Next let's make our sauce.
So Texas red is really all about the authentic chili flavor.
So if you're not familiar with steeping dried chilies
let me show you how to clean them up.
After 30 minutes in the hot water
these chilies become nice and soft and super fragrant.
So all I do is remove the stem, scrape out the seeds.
This process takes a little bit of time
but it's important to scrape out those seeds
simply because of the texture, but please don't stress.
If you leave a couple of seeds
it's definitely not gonna hurt.
And rough chop them to get ready for the blender.
As we blend these peppers
the aroma and the kitchen is so intense.
But I want you to know
the heat on these peppers is nothing to be afraid of.
And I promise you're gonna love it.
And this is the best part of this entire recipe.
I'm going to use a little bit of that reserved
steeping liquid, because there's a lot of flavor in there.
That will help the chilies blend up nice and smooth.
Once our chilies are nice and blended,
we'll add it straight into our pan with our onions,
turn the heat back up to medium high.
Next we'll add in our tomatoes,
our beef stock, and finally that gorgeous seared off chuck.
This chuck will submerge itself in this sauce
and braise for a few hours,
and become extremely tender and fall apart.
This is serious flavor intensified you guys.
This recipe is killer.
So we'll cover our chili,
and this will cook for about three and a half hours
and your entire house will smell so good.
Look at that.
Our Texas chili is done.
It has been simmering for about 30 minutes uncovered
to really let that broth thicken.
I'm ready to adjust my seasoning a little bit.
I might add a little bit more salt
but I'm definitely going to talk about
the importance of the acid.
So adding a whole lime, this acid will brighten all of it up
and it'll be the perfect finishing touch
on your bowl of comfort.
A good tip you should know about juicing citrus
is if you give it a quick roll on your cutting board
with slight pressure with the palm of your hand
right before you slice into it,
that makes it extra easy to juice.
So we'll just cut our limes in half
and using my opposite hand that I'm squeezing with.
I'll use it to catch any seeds that may fall
and go ahead and squeeze all of that juice out.
This is a great recipe, but I want to encourage you
to taste as you go.
Taste for that seasoning and taste for that salt,
everybody's palette is different.
Yep, I needed just a little bit more salt.
The moment everybody's always waiting for
it's time to bowl some of this up,
and I'm going to choose to garnish
with a little bit of sour cream,
because I love that extra tang it gives.
This is gonna become a family staple
in your house I promise.
Personally, I love a little extra lime with my Texas red.
Let's give it a taste.
Hmm, this is my definition of comfort.
I hope you guys enjoy this recipe.
I hope you've enjoyed cooking with me today,
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