My one and only chili story dates from when I used to live in Las Vegas in the late 1980s/early 1990s. My then roommate and I decided to enter the International Chili Society competition held at the Circus Circus. In order to compete in their competition, you have to follow their rules. This means no beans, pasta, or toppings of any sort in your entry. Well, I already had a recipe at the time that I liked, but it contained beans, so I had to reformulate it to meet the guidelines.
Here are the official ICS competition rules:
ICS | International Chili Society
There were some 300+ entries the year my buddy and I entered. Overall, we came in at 18th place. It doesn't sound very impressive now, but at the time we were ecstatic we cracked the top 5% or so, especially considering neither of us had any competition experience.
That was my first and last competition and I have long since lost that recipe, but the gist of it was this:
- The only thing the rules stated was that you use "meat." Most contestants use only beef, but we used a combination of cubed beef, pork, and lamb. All fatty cuts.
- Rather than canned tomatoes or sauce, we bought fresh tomatoes at the farmers market, and then blanched, peeled, and seeded them. It was the bulk of the work, but as far as I'm concerned it lent a real freshness to the flavor. I thought a lot of the other entries we sampled lacked that freshness.
- Fresh garlic and onions - and lots of it. A few fresh peppers add something as well.
- I didn't use commercial chili powder. Instead I bought dried guajillo, ancho, de arbol chiles (Las Vegas has some awesome hispanic markets). These were toasted, then reconstituted in some broth, and pureed in a blender. Again, fresh flavor was the result. We also made our own blend of toasted spices with cumin and coriander seed, and ground it in a mortar and pestle. The only dried herb I used was oregano.
Almost all of the seasoned veterans stuck to using prepackaged spices. I really thought that ours stood out for having a freshness that other recipes lacked. The judges must have thought the same thing, because it was remarked on more than once.
While we didn't win, it was still a lot of fun. At the time we were about 30 years old - mere kids compared to some of the grizzled old veterans in attendance. It was also great to have some of the old timers taste our concoction and remark that it was "not bad," which is considered high praise among that crowd.
