S.K.I.N.(2) Chili

3 cups dry beans
1/2 cup barley
1 cup water
3 pounds tomatoes (3)
1 bunch of cilantro
1 bell pepper
2 spice peppers (4)
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
2 cloves shallot
2 pounds ground turkey
some black pepper
3 tsp chili powder
3 tsp paprika
3 tsp cumin
2 tsp cayenne

It doesn't really matter what beans you chose to cook up for the chili, I usually use an even mix of black beans, pinto beans and black eyed peas. The only thing to watch out for is that they should all take identical preparation times. Oh, and you probably don't want to use red beans, they tend to fall apart to quickly. Rinse the beans off and then start soaking them 8 hours before you're going to cook the rest of the chili (5). Just cover them with a lot of water and put them aside.

Once the beans have soaked (6) wash them off in a strainer and then put 'em in a big pot. We'll need this pot later on for cooking the chili, so if you don't have a big big pot for the beans, well, all you've done is wasted fifty cents on beans by not having an adequately sized pot.

If you do have a large cooking pot, top the beans off with a lot of water and bring the pot to a boil. Once boiling, bring it down to a simmer and let them cook for 2 hours (7).

Put the boiled beans in a strainer and give them one last light rinsing. Some of them should almost be falling apart by now, so don't rinse too hard.

Clean out your big pot, since now the real cooking begins.

Take the barley, give it a light rinsing (what's with all the rinsing, jason?) and throw it in the bottom of the big pot, then throw in the cup of water. Turn the flame under the pot to it's lowest setting.

Rinse and chop up the tomatoes (I usually chop them into eighths, but whatever floats your boat) and dump them into the pot. Rinse and chop up the cilantro leaves and drop them in the pot (8). Core the bell pepper (remove the stem, the seeds and the annoying little white seed support system), rinse, and then dice. Throw the diced bell pepper into the pot. Dice the spicy peppers and throw them into the pot, but do not remove their seeds or internal seed support system, that's where most of the "heat" is found on a pepper (we wanted the bell peppers for their excellent taste, we want the spicy peppers for their taste and their heat).

Chop up the onion and place half of it in a frying pan, and half of it in the pot. Chop up the garlic and place one clove in the frying pan, and two of the cloves in the pot. Chop up the shallots and place one in the frying pan and one in the pot.

Now you should mix the contents of the pot, turn up the heat a bit, and let it cook with a lid on. Check it every so often and stir it quite a bit.

While the pot is cooking, turn on the heat under your frying pan. When the onions and garlic start to cook, it's time to throw on the turkey (9). Keep the turkey moving in the frying pan, so as not to burn any parts of the turkey. Add pepper to the turkey as it's frying. Turn the heat off underneath the turkey when you think all the turkey is done, or some parts are starting to get crispy. Don't worry to much about getting all the turkey fried up as the turkey will be in a boiling stew pot for an hour, and it will be completely cooked by the time the chili's done.

The big pot should be about cooked down by now... the tastier tomatoes having softened. Now add the beans. This will look like a lot of beans. Don't worry, they'll balance out when the chili is done. Just stir everything up so it's even, turn up the heat, and then put the cover back on.

Pour all the spices in a bowl together, and stir them until they're finely blended. For those of you with a more sensitive pallet, you might want to reduce the amount of cayenne pepper to just a half a teaspoon. Don't reduce it any more than that, as you'll be losing some of that essential "chili" quality if you do.

Once the pot has come to a boil, slowly add the mixed spices to the pot, maybe a teaspoon at a time, stirring it into the mix. Now, finally, your pot should be smelling like chili.

Now you can stir in the turkey - make sure to stir it in vigorously.

Once the pot has come to a boil again, you can let off the heat and let it simmer.

After about five minutes, you can check the overall spiciness of your chili. If it's still too weak, now would be the time to add more peppers or cayenne.

It will need to simmer for an hour. You'll also need to stir the mix quite often while it's cooking.

When it's finally done, turn off the heat and serve it up.

Makes about 12 cups

i,jasona

1) If you're really nice I'll post a link to the level when I'm finished with it.

2) Ra came up with this name when we were both living at the Republic. It stands for Swift Kick in the Nads.

3) Now, there's a trick to cooking with tomatoes. When you pick them up in the store, there's two ways you can go about it. Some tomatoes taste really good, yet fall apart when you cook 'em in a stew. Other tomatoes retain their shape, yet don't have as much flavor. Vine ripened tomatoes are always tasty, and Roma tomatoes will retain their shape. If there are other brands in your store the friendly clerk will be sure to know the qualities of the ones in stock. The point is that I always get a mix of both types of tomatoes; more flavor than form, but just enough form so that you can recognize the tomatoes in the chili. If you hate tomatoes, but love tomato sauce, chose the flavor-full ones, as they will atomize in the chili, making it ever so tasty, but without visible trace of tomato.

4) There are a couple stores in my local area that will sell me fresh spicy peppers, like habinaros, or jalapanos. They've even got several I've never seen before. I don't know your spice tolerance, so pick something you'll feel is appropriate. My most recent batches used the types of chilis they use to flavor Thai curry dishes, and I find that works wonderfully with the cumin and the turkey. You might want to start with tradition flavors, though.

5) I do this before work in the morning, but whenever's fine by you. If you're pressed for time, the bean preparation is easy, and they can be kept for a couple of days in a tuperware container until you're ready to cook chili.

6) If you've got a decent nose, and you've never cooked beans before, you're in for an nasty surprise. Soaked beans have an unpleasant smell. Don't worry too much about it, that smell will be gone by the time we use 'em...

7) Boring, eh? If you don't have a good book to read, or a DVD to play, you can always pick up some canned beans at the store. If you do go this route, make sure to rinse off all the nasty bean juice that comes with the canned beans. Trust me, this stuff is nasty and you don't want it getting in your nice chili.

8) If you don't like cilantro, completely disregard this step. In fact, most of you disregard this step. This is chili, and you really really can't detect the cilantro in it. "Why do you put it in, then, Jason?" Mostly because we're going to be cooking down the tomatoes, onions and peppers, and when you throw the cilantro in there with them it smells so good. Ok, fine, maybe the beans didn't bug you and you don't like cilantro. Fine. Be that way. It's my recipe and I'm going to list the ingredients I use.

9) With the amount of water in the onions and turkey, I don't need to add any oil or cooking spray to the surface of my frying pan. Your results may very with different pans, but I'd be surprised if you actually need any cooking oil or spray.