Sherklod Holmes @wallhackio@cat.family

The chili been cooking for almost three hours now. I went to take an evening walk so I turned on the oven to 275 degrees farenheit and once the oven reached that temp, I gave the chili a stir and put it in there--I got back after 50 minutes or so.

The flavors are starting to develop nicely. For a little extra oomph I decided to add some Vodka, since tomatoes and alcohol are a powerful combo (the alcohol from the beer should have nearly cooked out by now). I also added a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar to brighten things up and I also added a healthy serving of nutritional yeast, which is an incredibly delicious source of umami that only vegans use for some reason

The vodka here is pepper vodka my roommate has been experimenting with, where you extract pepper flavor in liquid form in essentially the same way vanilla extract is made from vanilla beans. they generously let me borrow it for the chili ​​

I gave it one final taste test and these ingredients really brightened it up, it's gonna taste SO DAMN GOOD after sitting in my fridge overnight :D

the house smells amazing right now ​​

Oh yeah let's also add some MSG because I'm a grown ass adult who deserves nice things

Oh! I forgot to mention I deglazed with Kentucky Breakfast Stout, a bitter, chocaltey imperial stout from Michigan I love.

Bitter hops can be a bit risky to use in a dish like this but I've always used half a bottle and it's never been an issue. It's become a sort of tradition for me every time I make an extravagant chili ​​

Then I added pretty much everything! The beans, the meat, the shredded chicken and chopped ham hocks, the oven-roasted peppers, the roasted garlic, some espresso + chocolate powder + brown sugar, the Magical Stock, and a little extra water

Now we bring to a boil and simmer for three hours ​​

Once the onions from the holy trinity started to become translucent, I added oregano, habaneros, minced garlic, tomato paste, and the Magical Chili Paste and let that all fry for a minute

awwwwwwwwww yeah 🤤

Now it's time to collect that fond by sweating out some holy trinity ​​

Time to brown the meat! By browning it we get delicious maillard reaction flavors and create fond at the bottom of the pot that we can deglaze for even more flavors later 🤤

I put a tiny bit of beef tallow in the pot for the first batch of meat, additional won't be necessary because of the additional fat that will be added from the fatty pork shoulder ​​

I taste tested the Magical Chili Paste and it is much less spicy than I anticipated, so I will add two habaneros to the chili. I like to mince them fine to avoid a situation where someone gets a large chunk of habanero in a spoon full

Now I get to play the minigame known as "clodboy don't touch your eyes for two days challenge" ​​

I happened to acquire a large number of peppers in the past week so I figured I would use them all in my chili ​​

Normally I fry the peppers with the onions but I have so many that I don't think I'll get any browning because of how many there are, so this time I will toss them in the oven with some oil and a heavy pinch of salt

My roommates also acquired this enormous head of garlic which I begged them to let me roast and put in the chili. They acquiesed

I've never put roasted garlic in chili before so we'll see how this goes!

It is day 3 and even more delicious plans are in the making ​​

the council has forced me to play final fantasy xiv

"if your name was John Donut then you would get into poetry"

Here is the primary meat for the chili: pork shoulder! Pork shoulder can be used in any situation you would use stewing beef like chuck roast, although it tends to shred instead of keep its shape (this is why it is often used for tacos or pulled pork sandwiches). It is wonderfully savory and fatty and incredibly delicious for the price ​​

I'm using a little over 2 lbs here, which when combined with the chicken and ham hocks will result in an extremely meaty chili

I'm salting them over a wire rack and leaving them in the fridge overnight. This will cause the salt to be absorbed in the meat (any maybe pull out some moisture I think? which might make it brown more easily? I dunno). I've never done this before for chili but it wasn't too difficult so I thought it was worth a try, we'll see how it goes!

The evening "errand" I had to run got in the way of the beans, hence the massive half in updates. I came back and finished the final batch of beans. I added a little extra salt to it and the resulting bean-liquer-infused stock is really quite something ​​

Here is the most significant fruits of my labor here: some chili paste, stock, and prepared beans. What isn't shown in the shredded chicken and chopped ham hocks

Just one more step for tonight and then I'm done!

:

Unfortunately got the heat too high and some of the beans stick to the bottom. I scraped them just in time to avoid burning but this caused many of the beans to burst ​

I ended up losing about half the beans. Luckily I'm doing this in three stages so I'll still have plenty of beans in the end ​​