Cincinnati-Style Chili – Food Wishes

It’s always treacherous attempting an iconic, regional specialty like Cincinnati-style chili, especially when you’ve never actually had the “real thing.” People are very protective of these types of dishes, and any variance from what they think the recipe should be is met with a visceral condemnation. On the other hand, the food Gods hate a coward, and so I made it anyway.

For the fully formatted, printable, written recipe, follow this link:
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/278323/chef-johns-cincinnati-style-chili/

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You can also find more of Chef John’s content on Allrecipes: http://allrecipes.com/recipes/16791/everyday-cooking/special-collections/web-show-recipes/food-wishes/”

hello this is chef john from food wishes dot comma with cincinnati style chili that’s where i do not let that spaghetti fool you this is definitely a type of chili at least according to my friends in cincinnati ok my friends in texas might disagree oh by the way i’m not sure exactly how authentic this is since i’ve never actually been to cincinnati or at least not physically alright spiritually i feel like i’ve been there a few times but regardless I thought this came out great and to get started we’re gonna need a couple pounds of ground beef in case you have a choice the finer the grind the better and what we’ll do is transfer that into a nice big soup pot and then add some tomato paste okay I’m gonna add an entire six ounce can and by the way I think I speak for all wooden spoon wielding Italian grandmothers when I say please rinse out that cam with a couple tablespoons of water and add that to the pot as well which I did once this was on the stove but I didn’t film it and then to that we will add some minced garlic as well as one large diced yellow onion at which point is time to add our spices so many spices starting with some good old-fashioned chili powder some ground cumin some cinnamon and of course some cayenne pepper we will also do a little touch of allspice as well as some ground clove some freshly ground black pepper which means we freshly grinded ourselves we will also do one bay leaf preferably from Turkey and definitely not from California and then we will finish up with a little bit of sugar as well as of course a good amount of salt and then as far as our wet ingredients go we’ll do some apple cider vinegar plus a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce followed by six cups of nice fresh cold water and that is going to be it so yes we do have a good amount of ingredients here but the good news is all we have to do here is throw them all in a pot although before we place this on the heat we are going to do one thing first what we’re gonna do is take a potato masher or even a large whisk if you want and we’re going to give this a good mashing / stirring so that we break all that meat up into small particles before this starts to cook all right that’s what’s gonna give us that fine-grained texture we’re after so we’ll go ahead and give that a very good mix at which point we’ll place our pot over medium-high heat and we will simply wait for all this to start to boil and while this is coming up to temperature it is not a bad idea to take our most experienced wooden spoon and give all this an occasional stir and while stirring at this point is mostly so we feel like we’re doing something useful it’s also to break up any larger pieces of meat that we might have missed with the masher which I don’t think I did but we’ll give it a check anyway and then here’s our game plan as soon as this does come up to a simmer we’ll reduce our heat to medium-low and simmer this stirring occasionally for about an hour to an hour and a half or until it looks feels and tastes exactly how we want it and of course while this simmers fats can rise to the top and if we want we could skim that off or we could do what they do in Cincinnati and not skim that off and simply stir it back into our chili which if you’re using grass-fed beef is probably not a bad idea but that’s going to be up to you I mean you guys are after all the icky woods of your shouldn’ts in shoulds and for the record I decided I shouldn’t and I stirred that fat right in since that will add richness and flavor and by the way this is what mine look like after simmering for 1 hour and I could have and probably should have stopped at this point but for whatever reason I decided I wanted mine a little thicker so I ended up cooking mine for about another half hour at which point it looked like this so at this point that was looking good to me which means we have to grab a spoon and give it a taste before we serve so I did and decided it was perfect and I went ahead and pulled out the bay leaf because it was right there and that’s it we can go ahead and grab a ladle and serve this up and right here you’re gonna get a great look at that thick texture I was going for very fairly dry and very pasty it’s sort of looking like a nice Bolognese speaking of which believe it or not Cincinnati style chili is served over spaghetti that’s how they do so we will go ahead and ladle that over some plain boiled spaghetti oh and pro tip here do not under cook that pasta okay we don’t want al dente here we’ve lined it fully cooked and very very tender for this and then if you finish this off with some diced onions and some grated orange cheddar like I’m going to you’d be enjoying what they call in Cincinnati a four-way because of the four components all right if you don’t do the onions and just do the cheese we would be having what they call a three-way and if we’re being honest this is probably the only way that one’s getting checked off our bucket list which is fine still counts but anyway whether you’re doing a three-way a four-way or a five-way which I believe is with beans and or oyster crackers I get confused on the five way but anyway the point is no matter which way you enjoy this we should not we must not we will not world a fork all right a Cincinnati chili is eaten by cutting the spaghetti with the fork and then scooping everything up like you’re eating a noodle casserole and yes I did try to troll that a little bit all right the muscle-memory takes over but the reason you want to cut in scoop and not twirl is because due to the texture of the meat if you twirl the pasta that’s all you’re gonna get in the bite mostly plain pasta but by cutting and Scooby you’re going to be able to get everything on the fork at once so basically in Cincinnati that’s how people can tell who the tourists are so do not be a twirler okay that’s like going to New York City and eating a slice of pizza with a fork and a knife it is just not done but anyway how you should eat this aside it really is very delicious and I think you’re gonna love it if you tend to like foods from the Middle East or the Mediterranean or Greek food or Indian food or if you like those spices and flavor profiles you’re gonna love this but if you don’t you won’t although you could still make this and just use your traditional chili spices but happily I really like those flavors so I very much enjoyed this although if I’m being very picky I thought this might have been a little too dry and that I reduced it maybe a little too much so in the name of science and art I decided to take the leftovers and add some more water and a little more tomato paste and another pinch of salt and I went ahead and thin this out it brought it back up to temperature and I tried another serving with this much saucer version so I went ahead and did everything exactly the same and again opted for the four-way and then dug in again concentrating on not twirling which is very very hard for an experienced spaghetti eater and of course not being able to sit in front of this makes it a little challenging as well but anyway I eventually managed to get a couple four fulls into my face and believe it or not it was pretty much the exact same experience I mean yes there were more juices at the bottom of the bowl which I guess is a good thing but the saucer version versus that thick pasty version really was not that much different although in case it matters the video I’ve seen of the real stuff looks a little more similar to this saucer second version Bob regardless of how thick or looser Cincinnati style chili is or whether you end up enjoying a three-way a four-way horrified way I really do hope you give this unusual but very delicious chili a try sinner so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and as always enjoy you you