Yacht Club Chili

This is the chili that Sean O'Connor, esteemed CEO of Batter Blaster, and I made that won the Mariposa Hunter's Point Yacht Club's chili cook-off in 2009. That might sound impressive, but I think at least one of the competitors entered Hormel's. The short rib flap meat can be tough to find, but you're really looking for any big fatty cut of beef.

Ingredients

Several pounds of short rib flap meat, cubed
Chorizo – use the soft beef kind in a plastic chub
Ground pork – best using fresh ground with a good amount of fat
Several onions, shredded in a Cuisinart and liquid squeezed out thru cheese cloth)
Several Green Bell peppers (Cuisinart these as well, squeeze out liquid)
Garlic
2 cans Ortega green chiles – diced
Tomato paste
Chili powder or homemade chili paste if you're adventurous – pre made chili powder is fine but there are a lot of interesting types to experiment with. For this chili, we reconstituted dried chiles in chicken stock and made a paste instead of using off-the-shelf chili powder.
Several large cans of whole tomatoes. If you can get San Marzano, get San Marzano
Dark beer, like Anchor Steam
Salt – as you cook salt each layer of the chili – not too much but you should not have to salt when finished
White pepper – this gives nice heat to the mouth
Sugar – add a bit to the onions and a little at the end( before the long cook)
Tabasco

Directions

Brown the short rib flap meat in batches in a large dutch oven or heavy bottomed pot. Remove. Drain off any excess fat, do not wipe down the pot. Brown the chorizo (use the soft beef chorizo in casing) in the same pot. Add onions, bell peppers, garlic and chiles, sweat down. Brown tomato paste in sweated vegetables. Add the meat back in and lots of chili powder – let the chili powder” open or bloom” in the fat of the chorizo and pork with the vegetables. Mix. Add tomatoes and 2 bottles dark beer, like Anchor Steam. Season with salt, white pepper, a little sugar, and Tabasco sauce for heat. Cook, covered, for several hours, skimming fat occasionally, until meat has broken down. The dish will start out looking very watery but will reduce over the cooking process to become very thick and hearty – your wooden spoon will stand in the pot when done.

4 hours (est)