Cooking with peppers is fun. It feels so... exotic and dangerous. I didn't grow up with particularly spicy food, so I didn't buy chili peppers to cook with until the past several years. I like spicy food, but just a little bit of spice will keep my face warm for a while.
I decided to make Poblano-Jalapeño Chili last month. I know that poblanos are decidedly not hot and jalapeños can range in how hot they are, so this is nothing too adventurous. That said, I like my usual hamburger+tomatoes+beans+chili powder version of chili, so I usually don't try chili recipes. I think it was the inclusion of the beer and the peppers that drew me to this recipe and convinced me to give it a try.
Pretty simple and standard to make. Brown and drain hamburger; saute onions and peppers, etc.; deglaze; add spices and rest of ingredients; simmer until done.
My ingredient notes: I used 80/20 ground beef instead of sirloin, and rinsed it well when I drained it. I seeded one jalapeño and included the seeds of the second one, per recipe instructions. I don't care much for Corona so I bought Schlafly Summer Lager, which is refreshing to drink (and I don't generally drink light-colored lagers), and it worked well in this chili. This recipe takes marinara sauce; I had half marinara and half meat-flavored sauce, which also worked fine in this recipe. I used plain canned kidney beans, which I rinsed and drained well since they weren't low-sodium. I did buy fire-roasted tomatoes for this dish. I supplemented chicken broth with bouillon so I skipped adding salt. I simmered the chili covered rather than uncovered since I was doing something else in the meantime and so my chili might have been a little thinner than expected.
This chili was pretty good. Some bites were spicy but not overwhelmingly so. It was savory and satisfying. Meaty and not too beany. I think the inclusion of the beer rounded out the flavor. I was a little surprised it wasn't too tomatoey from the pasta sauce. It was tasty the night I made it but it became better after sitting in the fridge overnight as most chilis do. Overall, this was a pretty tasty, easy-to-make, satisfying dish. I can see myself making this recipe again sometime.
However, here's a chili recipe I love: Slow Cooker Chicken Chili.
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