Food & Drink

Ultimate Chili Recipe Roundup

We’ve been craving chili all winter. Luckily, Crescent Dragonwagon’s bestselling Bean by Bean has some of the best recipes around. Make one or make all three (and call it a “Flight of Chilis”).

You can serve them all with Cornbread, and of course, all the Fixins…

Chili Fixins

Set out bowls of as many of the following as you can muster, and let your guests doctor their bowls of chili as they like. To my taste, the Fixins are essential with all red chiles except mole; with mole or chilis of other colors, they’re optional.

  • Grated sharp Cheddar and/or Monterey Jack cheese
  • Sour cream, plain Greek-style yogurt, or tofu sour cream
  • Guacamole, or sliced ripe Hass avocados sprinkled with lime juice
  • Salsa
  • Pico de gallo
  • Diced raw onion
  • Pickled jalapeños
  • Chopped fresh cilantro
  • Chopped chipotle chiles in adobo
  • Tabasco or other hot sauce
  • Cornbread, corn chips, warm corn tortillas, or rice

About the Book:

Has there ever been a more generous ingredient than the bean? Down-home, yet haute, soul-satisfyingly hearty, valued, versatile deeply delectable, healthful, and inexpensive to boot, there’s nothing a bean can’t do—and nothing that Crescent Dragonwagon can’t do with beans. From old friends like chickpeas and pintos to rediscovered heirloom beans like rattlesnake beans and teparies, from green beans and fresh shell beans to peanuts, lentils, and peas, Bean by Bean is the definitive cookbook on beans. It’s a 175-plus recipe cornucopia overflowing with information, kitchen wisdom, lore, anecdotes, and a zest for good food and good times.

Consider the lentil, to take one example. Discover it first in a delicious slather, Lentil Tapenade. Then in half a dozen soups, including Sahadi’s Lebanese Lentil Soup with Spinach, Kerala-Style Dahl, and Crescent’s Very, Very Best Lentil, Mushroom & Barley Soup. It then turns up in Marinated Lentils De Puy with Greens, Baked Beets, Oranges & Walnuts. Plus there’s Jamaica Jerk-Style Lentil-Vegetable Patties, Ethiopian Lentil Stew, and Lentil-Celeriac Skillet Sauce. Do the same for black beans—from Tex-Mex Frijoles Dip to Feijoada Vegetariana to Maya’s Magic Black Beans with Eggplant & Royal Rice. Or shell beans—Newly Minted Puree of Fresh Favas, Baked Limas with Rosy Sour Cream, Edamame in a Pod. And on and on—from starters and soups to dozens of entrees. Even desserts: Peanut Butter Cup Brownies and Red Bean Ice Cream.

Buy the Book

IndieboundB&NAmazon | Workman

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