Hell's Kitchen Chili

This is a pretty elastic recipe, so feel free to make substitutions. I call it Hell's Kitchen Chili because of all the flavors I associate with New York--Italian sausage and plum tomatoes. When I was at New York University in the graduate writing program, a couple of us used to sometimes have a bowl of chili in this place right off Washington Square. It was bar chili, served in a crock and topped with cheese and raw onion. No rice in that chili, and I'd like to think mine's a little tastier. But it's really just a good bowl of bar chili.

3 poblano peppers
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cups chopped onion
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 lb. hot Italian sausage
1 lb mild Italian sausage
2 lbs ground chuck
2 green peppers chopped
2 red peppers chopped
3 32 oz cans of whole Italian plum tomatoes, drained
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
2 to 8 (depending on how hot you want your chili) serrano peppers
2 cans of kidney beans
1 cup red wine
6 tablespoons of chili powder
3 tablespoons of ground cumin
salt and pepper to taste
2 lbs of fresh plum tomatoes (unless tomatoes are in season, in which case, any good tomato*)
shredded Monterey jack
sour cream
sliced green onions
a pot of cooked white rice

(This recipe makes about 10 really large servings, I use a dutch oven to make it.)

1. Cut the Poblanos in half and roast them, skin side up, under the broiler until skins split and blacken. Drop them in a brown paper bag for at least ten minutes to let them steam, then peel the skin off and chop them. If all the skin doesn't come off, no big deal, it's chili. In fact, if you don't feel like roasting them, just chop them with the green and red pepper and don't worry about it. I'm not even sure anyone but me cares about this step.

2. Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil for about 5 minutes, or until they start to soften.

3. Add the sausage. If I can't find bulk sausage, I just cut the casing and take the sausage out of there. Once the sausage has browned, add the chuck and brown it as well.

4. Add the chopped sweet peppers and poblanos and cook about ten minutes, or until the peppers start to soften.

5. Take the chili off the heat and add the tomatoes (I drain them in put them back in the can then mash them with a fork or use a stick blender to kind of pulp them up and release some of the inside juice) the beans, the wine, tomato paste, chili powder and ground cumin, salt and pepper and let this all cook for about ten minutes. Longer if you want.

6. Add the chopped fresh tomatoes and cook another ten minutes.

To serve, put a mound of white rice in the bottom of a bowl, smother with chili, top with sour cream, cheese and sliced green onions. I like to serve this with cornbread and really cold beer. Veggies and dip are good, too, because the crisp veggies are a nice contrast. Desert should be something like chocolate chip cookies or pie.


*In winter, when most tomatoes have no taste, plum tomatoes sometimes do.