Vic came over for a Rockford Files last night and I had planned to serve up a chilli. I foolishly strayed from the preferred path of matching the recipe to the event. Instead of making a James Garner chilli (which I know from experience is the BEST chilli ever) I decided to try Warner Baxter’s version, making it the night before to give it time to mature…
Epic fail. You know that feeling when you are all by yourself and there is nobody to consult with and you think: “this doesn’t seem right”? Well I had that feeling constantly while making Warner’s chilli. 1 and a 1/2 cups of olive oil? That didn’t seem right. One whole cup of chilli powder? That didn’t seem right either, so I only put 1/2 a cup in. This still resulted in a chilli which had the power to strip paint. Certainly too hot to serve a guest. And very, very oily.
Of course I am far too much of a skinflint to throw the whole thing away. There is 3lbs of meat in that chilli! So I sieved it:
packed it up in three freezer bags and labelled it carefully:
I will save these for the following eventualities:
1 – an evening where I have a streaming cold and can’t really taste anything.
2 – if I ever have a heavily pregnant houseguest who is past their due date
3 – when Heather comes round for the annual freezer defrosting when she will no doubt make me throw them away.
Warner what were you thinking?!
