Beef Chili Colorado and Pork Chili

Assembled Beef Chili Colorado


Baked Chili Colorado


To make either Beef Chili Colorado or Pork Chili you will need a large glass or enamel oven-proof baking dish.

Ingredients:

Five or six pounds of beef, in the form of beef roast or thick beefsteak, cut up into large, two inch cubes.
You do not need to buy expensive beef…buy the least expensive roast or large steaks your store has on sale that week. The acid from the lemon juice, and the tomato acid in the recipe will tenderize the meat during cooking.

You will need tomato sauce, your favorite brand without added seasoning, two 15oz cans

Tomato pieces, one 15 oz can(s) without salt, or fresh tomatoes cut up into pieces.
There’s a lot of sodium in canned sauces and tomatoes so it is a good idea to try to cut down on the amount of sodium in the recipe by using canned or fresh tomatoes that do not contain salt.

BBQ sauce, a bottle of your favorite brand with hickory flavoring

Several fresh washed Anaheim Chilies cut into pieces
Or
A whole bottle of Mezzetta yellow banana chilies cut in half or leave whole. The only draw back to using the bottled chilies is that they do contain a lot of sodium, and you are already getting sodium in the tomato sauce and the BBQ sauce. I usually choose the unsalted tomato products and the Mezzetta chilies.

You will also add:

A whole fresh, yellow onion diced
A couple of stalks of celery, washed and chopped
A whole bulb of Fresh, chopped and or crushed garlic
Several tablespoons of virgin olive oil to sauté the diced onion, celery and garlic
The juice of two fresh lemons or limes to help tenderize the meat
Dried Bay Leaves, wash off any residue on the Bay Leaves before putting them into the sauce recipe because residue on dried leaves is usually dried bug droppings...you don’t need bug droppings in your food.

Cook the sauce for only a couple minutes until it is hot… The sauce will cook completely, and the flavors will blend in while everything cooks in the oven.

Method

Make the sauce on the stove, in a large saucepan.
Start by sautéing the diced onion, chopped celery and garlic in the virgin olive oil until the vegetables are tender.
Add to the vegetables, tomato sauce, chopped tomatoes, BBQ sauce, and Bay Leaves.

Cut the beef up into cubes approximately two-inch squares; remove with a knife any tough, stringy, connective membranes in the meat.
Arrange the beef cubes in the baking dish, and squeeze the fresh lemon or lime juice over the meat cubes.

Pour the hot sauce over the beef, be careful to not splash yourself while you do this, and cover the dish with aluminum foil leaving a hole in the center so steam can escape as the meat and sauce cook, blending their flavors together.

Carefully place the covered dish of meat and sauce into a preheated 375 degree oven.

Check on the dish in the oven, after an hour.
Check the meat for tenderness by piercing a center piece with a fork. If it is still tough then continue cooking with the foil cover on.
It takes at least three hours and often five to six hours before the meat is fork tender. The gravey the meat is cooking in is delicious on either mashed potatoes or rice. As the meat cooks be sure that the pan does not dry out. Add some water, if it is necessary, to keep the gravy, and avoid the meat from drying out.

Remove the foil covering from the baking dish, and allow the liquid in the dish to thicken from some loss of moisture.
What you want to end up with is a thick tomato/hickory/garlic/onion flavored sauce with tender beef cubes.

As you allow the sauce to dry just a bit you will have to turn the beef cubes several times as you see the exposed sides of the cubes become brown and dry..
Be careful to not burn yourself as the sauce is very hot.

After you remove the finished Beef Chili Colorado from the baking dish you will have to ‘soak’ the baking dish emerged in water to remove the dried on residual tomato sauce that will be in the baking dish.

Traditional Beef Chili Colorado is delicious served with flour tortillas, your favorite cooked rice dish, and your favorite homemade guacamole made with avocado, fresh lemon or lime juice, chopped cilantro, chopped fresh onion and fresh chopped tomato bits. Add light sour cream on the side. Homemade salsa and a tossed green salad rounds out this meal.
I made this combination for my husband’s Father’s Day luncheon last June 2009.

You can also serve this beef chili with traditional mashed potatoes and vegetables.

Pork Chili

If you make this Beef Chili Colorado dish with pork cubes instead of beef you will end up with a delicious Pork Chili. Again, you do not have to buy expensive cuts of meat because the acids from the citrus including the tomato sauce acid, will tenderize the meat as it cooks in the oven. The best pork to buy for this recipe is an inexpensive Pork Shoulder Roast or a Pork Butt will do nicely.

Pork Chili is started differently in that you need to ‘render’ the fat out of the pork cubes before you put the meat into the tomato/onion/garlic/hickory flavored sauce.

To render pork you put the pork cubes in a baking dish, and into a pre-heated 350 degree oven for a half hour. After most of the fat is rendered out of the pork cubes you remove the meat from the baking dish, and pour off the fat. You then add the meat back to the baking dish, and carefully add the hot sauce you made on top of the stove, to the baking dish. Cover with foil, and cook the pork in the same method as you cook the Beef Chili Colorado. Cooking time can range anywhere from three to five or six hours. This pork recipe ends up well cooked and tender, and is absolutely delicious.
Pork Chili makes a meal that is guaranteed to please at anytime of the year!
Both Chili Colorado and Pork Chili freeze well. I always make large batches of either of these recipes, and freeze meal sized portions for the future.

UPDATE FOR PORK CHILI

I made my Pork Chili for New Year's Day 2012. I am 3/4 Irish, and we like pork, and for the first day of the new year it is a tradition to have a form of pork or a ham for dinner. I cooked a ham for Christmas so I opted for the pork for New Year's. And what better way to serve pork at an Irish person's table, than in a favorite Mexican recipe!

The pork I used for my recipe was boneless pork in the form of long, large strips of meat with very little fat. This is the 'New Pork' that is in the market today. There was so little fat on this pork that to brown it I had to saute it in a heavy fry pan with some butter to brown and sear the meat before I placed it in the baking dish with the sauce, and placed it in the oven to cook. With the Pork Chili I served my home made mashed potatoes that I mashed with low-fat sour cream and a pat of butter. With the chili and potatoes we had green beans with sauted mushroom slices, and sliced, browned almonds. A chunky apple sauce and slices of fresh pineapple completed the dinner.
For desert we had a chocolate tort and coffee. It was an easy meal to prepare, and it was enjoyable.

I was lucky to be able to pick lemons from our backyard tree this year for my chili recipe. Usually at this time of year frost destroys the lemons that are still on our tree but this year our lemons were spared.

Carol Garnier Dutra

Copyright © 2010/2012 by Carol Garnier Dutra