Buffalo Chili

Buffalo Chili

Not being able to replicate Esther's chili, this is an homage to her as well as South Dakota in general – hence the buffalo. Buffalo is getting easier to find, if a tad on the expensive side, but any meat will work, regular ground beef, turkey, and a finely diced tri-tip roast is also excellent, but may cost more than the buff. Even better news is that buffalo are making a strong come back, so there's no reason to feel guilty about munching on one in this century, though they are majestic beasts and I highly recommend a trip to Custer State Park in SD to see them on the hoof. My wife and I had little money at the time so it was nice to pack a lunch, drive out to the wild life loop in Custer and sit on the hood, eating lunch and the herds walked by – now that is quality time.

To be honest I rarely measure, preferring a “shoot-look-shoot” approach to cooking, that is to say I add and taste as I go along. I'll include a recipe for you to follow, but I highly advise, especially when adding spice, to add a bit and taste. This should be common sense, but I have found folks will take recipes as gospel and plop in the entire tablespoon of ground ghost pepper thereby rendering the dish inedible – even the coyotes won't take a chance with that. Salt is another one that people tend to dump in, probably because they see some schmuck chef on TV dump a handful of kosher salt in a dish and say it isn't that much, it looks like a lot because the grains are bigger, not willing to admit the dish is now inedible. Bottom line, taste all your spices so you have an idea of how strong they are, then start small and work your way up tasting as you go. Also, if you skipped this bit and went right to the recipe and it is way too strong, it is because you are an idiot. Just sayin'.

I added some non-typical things to the brew, including a can of original Rotel and a couple shots of whiskey, because the alcohol helps the tomato in the Rotel and the tomato paste release more flavor and the taste of the whiskey adds a nice undertone. I also changed up on the beans using dark and light kidneys and pintos, mainly because I really like pintos. You could be bold and even toss in some black beans, they work out well in most anything calling for beans. In fact eventually we'll talk beans exclusively because they are tasty (except for nasty Limas) and a cheap source of protein, especially handy while the price of beef is through the roof.

Buffalo Chili

2lbs ground buffalo (you can substitute Bison if you prefer ;) )

3 strips of thick bacon diced

2 32oz cartons beef stock

1 10oz can of Original Rotel ( a mix of diced tomato and chili peppers)

1 15oz can Dark Red Kidney Beans

1 15oz can Light Red Kidney Beans

1 15oz can Pinto Beans

1 5oz can tomato paste

1 small onion diced

1 tsp mince garlic

2 Tbs chili pepper

1 Tsp cayenne (for the love of whatever deity you fall to your knees for taste as you add this!)

1 Tbs brown sugar

1 shot of whiskey

1 Tbs canola oil ( you may need a bit more as buff is very lean so keep an eye on it).

salt and pepper to taste

Start by adding the oil to a hot pan and browning the diced onion, bacon, and garlic. You can add a couple pinches of kosher salt at this point. Once the onion is starting to brown up a bit add the beef and brown it up good. Once browned dump in the Rotel, tomato paste, whiskey, and all the spices including the sugar. Mix well and allow to simmer a bit, then add one carton of the beef stock (buffalo stock is tough to come by) and stir. Simmer for around 45 minutes stirring occasionally, tasting occasionally and adjusting the spices and adding more stock if needed – the meat should be covered. Simmer until thick, or dump it in a crock pot on low and let it ruminate for a couple of hours.

Browning bacon, onions, and garlic

Brown the buffalo

Add Rotel, whiskey, and spices

Add beef stock and simmer

A Simple Bowl of Chili

No matter what your mythology, whether a fat man in a red suit slides down the chimney, or an immaculately conceived baby was born in a manger or the god Saturn blessed your harvest, it is a season to celebrate. The celebration has nothing to do with the merchants trying to shore up their bottom line by twisting the story of the Magi to suit their purposes, but rather a time for friends and family, fond remembrances told around the table, the same old stories perhaps, but just as dear a the first time they were told. Food is a big part of this, it seems to bring us together, enhances the memories and makes us feel better in general – there is a reason it is called comfort food.

I was a young airman with and even younger wife when we met a wonderful family in South Dakota, the Rambos, and were taken in and virtually adopted. So are the folks living in that state, generous and caring folks, even taking in strangers for a night, as happened when my sergeant and I were stranded on a back road in a blizzard. The Rambos, and their daughter's family, the Parks accepted us into their brood and shared their stories and their love. Sadly the Rambos have passed, as has Esther Parks and the world is a bit colder for their passing. Before this becomes to maudlin, it is important to note that a very special feast was held each Christmas eve with Esther's chili-con-carne as the star of the show.

Anyone familiar with a Dakota winter will understand how warm and comforting a good bowl of chili can be on a bitter winter's night. And this was made all the better by being shared among a loving family. The chili was some of the best I have ever had and my efforts to duplicate it fall terribly short. Perhaps I lack the love Esther put into the mix, or maybe it is best eaten on a cold Christmas Eve in Rapid City to be really appreciated. Whatever the reason, I still like to make a pot of the spicy beans and beef as a tribute to Esther and to help bring on memories of one of the most wonderful giving families it has been my pleasure to meet.

So here is to you, your memories and the food that brings you comfort. I hope your holiday, whatever it is, will be filled with love, laughter, friends and family.

Requiem for a turkey

Well it's all over but the shouting, you've finally seen the back of all the relatives, and all that's left of the Thanksgiving feed is the last can of Who-Hash. Now to plop down in a comfy chair and let the healing begin so you're in one piece by the time X-mas rolls around. Tough to think of food at a time like this, but those turkeys turned out pretty nice, one started with hickory and finished with apple, the other started with apple and finished with cherry. Both came out juicy and tasty and this is a good time to recap why, and if really ambitious write it down for next year ( I am not that ambitious and besides, I cannot resist tinkering as I cook).

Slip me some skin

Edible non-rubbery skin is a good goal for any poultry project and salt is the answer, or at least part of the answer. This step does add to prep time, but salting the skin with copious amounts of kosher salt so the grains are very noticeable, covering it with some snarl wrap (aka plastic wrap, one of the devil's own tools), and leaving it in the fridge for 2 hours will bring the bird a long way down the crispy skin road. Once the time is up unwrap the turkey and rinse thoroughly to remove the salt and proceed with prep.

Fun between the membranes

Now for the really icky part, slip your fingers between the skin and the breast meat starting at the turkey ass-end and working your way towards the gobble, break the connections between the skin and the flesh. The idea is to create a stuff-able space in between the membranes so you can add stuff – what stuff, you might ask? Well, nearly anything from old gym socks to the entire contents of a lava lamp, but I'd stick to lubricants and herbage such as bacon strips and rosemary. I used both in my turkeys and they did add moisture and flavor to the bird, but by checking the “Flavor Bible” you may find other combinations that might suit your fancy, perhaps sage herb butter or vegetable oil and chopped garlic.

Get stuffed

I don't put stuffing in the bird, but the gaping cavity where the ass used to be does scream for some sort of filling and presents another chance to welcome flavor aboard the SS Rotting Carcass. I'm lucky enough to have a small forest of rosemary in the front yard and a lemon tree in the back, so my choices are obvious. If you're Hill-folk, you might be tempted to shove another animal, such as a duck up the turkey's ass and then shove a chicken up the duck's ass to boot. I'd stick to some sort of herbs and fruit personally, but experimentation is part of the process of growing as a cook so have at – bearing in mind that for all practical purposes you are serving this to fellow humans who might not care for the flavor of that smoldering “Tickle Me Elmo” that you inserted on a dare.

Hard Wood

While attempting to avoid any dick jokes, wood is important to the barbecue process and will add beautiful smokey over tones to compliment the other flavors you have forced upon the dead bird. Mesquite, the usual go to wood out here in the desert is way too bitter, so it is off on a scavenger hunt for other hard woods that won't overpower the fowl, such as hickory or oak. I used hickory chunks to lay the base of the flavor , then half way through the process switched to apple wood to bring on some sweet, and that worked well for my first bird. On the second I opted to start with the apple and then switch to cherry, which rendered a very sweet tasting flesh, quite nice in fact.

Fire it up

I use a chimney style starter to avoid having my food taste like it was brought to you by Shell Oil, and lay the coals down to provide indirect heat, that is a pile of hot coals on one side and a pile of hot coals on the other with a pan of liquid (in this case beer) in between. The pan catches drippings and the liquid instills flavor and steam to aid in moisturizing the boid. I cover the breast with a foil heat shield to slow the cooking of fore mentioned meat, which helps the dark meat get a head start while keeping the white meat moist, and who doesn't like tender moist breasts I ask? Towards the end of the process I mop the bird with some melted butter to aid in the crispification of the skin as well as the rich goodness of buttery, buttery butter.

TTFN

And here we are once again, at the very end of the tail, or Parson's Nose at it is called by our Appalachian brethren. Hopefully the information will help me to remember what I did next time, help you next Thanksgiving of if doing a turkey just for the sake of it – turkey is cheap and readily available through out the year, after all. Next we must set our eye's upon Saturnalia and try to figure out what to serve the next onslaught of relatives that will keep their mouths busy so one doesn't have to listen to all their crap. Just kidding, no really I am. I enjoy cooking and don;t get the chance to cook for groups very often so I do thank everyone for allowing me to inflict my lack of culinary skills upon them ever holiday. I'd also like to thank my grill, which even after fourteen long years still cooks like a champ.  

The Bird, the Whole Bird, and nothing but the Bird...

Though enamored with the boneless turkey roasts, my daughter decided that I should go back to the whole bird for the sake of the grandkids so they might experience the Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving of days gone by. I have to admit there is no romance in the boneless roasts, though they do resemble a football, which is appropriate considering the relatives sleeping through the Giants game in the living room. I had cooked the whole bird when my own kids were smaller. I used the oven, turkey bags (which work very well) , and finally the grill. Once I plopped ol' Tom Turkey on the hot grids I never looked back, though there was one episode that didn't go as planned.

Turkzilla

We were going to celebrate Turkey day with some friends and they said they'd provide the bird and so they did on the day of the festivities they brought over a monster turkey, perhaps the biggest I'd ever seen. The 23 pound beast did fit on my grill, however when I tried to put the cover on my Weber to commence roasting, it just rocked back and forth on top of the bird. The clock was running on this meal with only a few hours until meal time so I had to do some fast thinking. I tired jury rigging the grill by using bricks to prop the top, but that still didn't allow for covered cooking, so violating every rule in my microwave owner's manual, I stuffed the behemoth in the microwave and cooked the hell out of it, finishing it in the oven to get some brown on the skin. The fowl came out very nicely despite the unorthodox and potentially lethal cooking methods.

Prep

Getting the bird ready for the grill is half the battle, maybe even ¾ as the prep will help determine if the bird is a dry chunk of meat in a rubber bag of skin, or a moist bird with crispy golden hide. This is also your chance to introduce a bit of flavor by separating the skin form the breasts (carefully) and inserting various food related items. Herbage is always welcome, moisturizers such as strips of bacon or pats of butter are also a good addition, or for something off the scale try Martin Yan's Chinese Roast Turkey – possibly the most flavorful bird I ever grilled up. In fact I may do that this year accompanied with Yan's superb stuffing recipe.

As for the skin, salting the outside of the bird with kosher salt so that the salt is visible, then wrapping and refrigerating for about 2 hours puts you on the road to crisp skin. After the two hours, bring the bird out and rinse thoroughly to get all the salt off. Them pierce the skin with a fork and part way through the cooking mop the skin with some oil – olive, not motor.

Fire it Up

Once you have pimped out your bird the next step is to arrange indirect heat on the grill by placing coals on either side leaving an open area in the center. This open area is a great place to put a pan full of beer or water, you can use one of those disposable foil pans. The fluid filled pan will do two things, help with the moisture and catch grease from the bird. I like to place the bird on a roasting rack atop the grids, and clip the wing tips and tuck up the end of the drums, finally placing a tinfoil shield over the breast for the first hour of roasting. To be honest I use whatever wood I have on hand, generally mesquite, but starting with hickory or oak and finishing with apple or cherry would be the way to go. Maintain around 250-300 and use a meat thermometer stuck into the meaty part of the thigh to see how Ol' Tom is progressing. Remember for poultry you want the temp at 165. Generally I pull the bird when it his 160 and allow it to rest and cruise up toe 165 – remember you can always cut it up and microwave if the meat still looks a bit on the rare side.

Don't Poison Anyone

As with an food it is important to observe all safety guidelines – ignore these and you may well wind up killing guests instead of entertaining them. Go HERE  for some sound advice. I don't normally trust our government, but as they didn't name the item “War on Turkey” I figured it was probably going to be successful advice.