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Crabs in Clement and Crab Cakes in the Castro
Where do you get Dungeness crabs in the city?
The first place that comes to mind is, obviously, Fisherman’s Wharf teeming with seafood street vendors and restaurants. But the Wharf gets extremely crowded most of the time unless you go on a rainy weekday. A great alternative is the city’s Asian supermarkets. There’s certainly Chinatown, but there are two new cool neighborhood discoveries I recently made: Clement Street in Inner Richmond and Manila Oriental Market in Excelsior. Start at Clement and Arguello, walk westward down Clement and you’ll hit a goldmine of all things Asian. And there’s Manila Oriental Market along Mission Street in Excelsior, a place that definitely reminds me of home with aisle after aisle of Asian goodies like oyster sauce, tapioca starch, bibingka mix, dumpling wrappers, saba bananas, fresh whole fish and, of course, live crabs.
And if you feel like indulging in Dungeness crab cakes but don’t have the luxury of time to make them, where do you go for crab cakes in the city?
Here’s another surprising discovery: the Castro. Instead of taking the cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf, hop on the Muni and head over to the Castro and enjoy delicious crab cakes either at Woodhouse Fish Company along Market Street or Anchor Oyster Bar along Castro Street. Their cakes are fresh and tasty.
Here are more information about the supermarkets and restaurants mentioned in this blog.
Where to buy Dungeness crabs
Wing Hing Seafood Market
633 Clement St between 7th Avenue and 8th Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118
415.668.8986
Richmond New May Wah Superemarket
707-719 Clement Street and 8th Aveue
San Francisco, CA 94118
415.221.9826
Manila Oriental Market
4175 Mission St between Ney and Trumbull Streets
San Francisco, CA 94112
415.337.7272
Where to enjoy Crab Cakes
Woodhouse Fish Company
2073 Market St between 14th and Reservoir Streets
San Francisco, CA 94114
415.437.2722
Anchor Oyster Bar
579 Castro St between 18th and 19th Streets
San Francisco, CA 94114
415.431.3990
How to Make Dungeness Crab Cakes at Home
It’s Dungeness crab season in San Francisco and there’s no better way to enjoy these tasty crustaceans than to make crab cakes! Alice Waters has a great simple recipe for crab cakes in her amazing book The Art of Simple Food.
Making homemade crabcakes is an excellent example of why homecooking is so cool: you actually know what ends up in your plate because you made it yourself. Most of the time I wonder how much crabmeat there is in the crab cakes I get when I dine out. Get the best crabmeat, pick the freshest herbs, make your own breadcrumbs and if you’re a little adventurous, make your own mayonnaise from scratch! Fresh ingredients plus a simple recipe equals great-tasting food.
Crab Cakes
1 lb crabmeat (picked from 2 Dungeness crabs)
1 cup mayonnaise
2 Tbsp chopped chives
2 Tbsp chopped parsley
2 Tbsp chopped chervil
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
salt and cayenne to taste
1-1/2 cups breadcrumbs (click here to learn how to make fresh breadcrumbs)
5 Tbsp unsalted butter (click here to learn how to make clarified butter)
Cooking the crabs
Boil salted water in a large pot and then carefully drop in the Dungeness crabs. Two Dungeness crabs will yield roughly a pound of crabmeat but use as many blue crabs or other crabs as needed to yield the same. Boil for 15 minutes. Remove the crabs from the pot and let them drain and cool.
Pull off the large top shell, remove the fibrous lungs and rinse lightly.
Split the main body in half down the center. Pull off the legs, crack them, and pick the crabmeat from the body and legs. Big chunks of crabmeat are good for texture. Put the crabmeat in a bowl and gently go through the meat to remove any bits of shell left in the meat. Refrigerate until ready to use.
Making the cakes
Stir the chives, parsley, chervil, lemon juice, salt and cayenne into the mayonnaise and mix thoroughly. Let me make a note that chervil is pretty difficult to find. Even the local Whole Foods does not normally carry them. If you find yourself chervil-less, don’t worry I think you’ll be fine without it.
Stir the mayonnaise into the crabmeat, mix gently but thoroughly. Taste and add more lemon juice and salt as needed. Form the mixture into patties. I ended up making six 3-inch diameter cakes. Roll the patties to coat in the breadcrumbs.
Warm a heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat. Pour in the clarified butter (click here to learn how to make clarified butter) and when the butter is hot, carefully add the crab cakes and fry until golden brown, about 4 minutes on each side. If the breadcrumbs start to burn, turn down the heat.
A cool variation to this dish is to use fish fillet to make fish cakes. Waters recommends using a firm white fish like halibut, haddock or ling cod. Use two cups of chopped fish fillet in place of the crabmeat.
How to make fresh bread crumbs
Breadcrumbs are best made from bread that has been dried out for a day or two. For breading and frying, Waters recommends using white bread. First, remove the crust. Cut the crustless bread into cubes and grind up the bread in batches using a food processor or a blender. The bread should be ground up thoroughly so the crumbs are more or less the same size. Crumbs for breading need to be ground very fine, so they will stick to and evenly coat whatever is being breaded.
Melt unsalted butter in a small heavy pot over medium heat. Cook the butter until it has spearated and the milk solids are just turning a light golden brown. Pour through a fine strainer to remove the milk solids.
Brining Chicken Thomas Keller-Style
Brining is an amazing tool to cure meats and to season them uniformly. Here is Thomas Keller’s recipe for chicken brine that you can use for roasting or frying chicken.
The key ingredient is lemon, which goes wonderfully well with chicken. Adding the herbs: bay leaf, parsley and thyme gives the chicken a wonderful aromatic flavor.
The recipe makes 2 gallons of brine which is enough for 10 pounds of chicken. This may be a bit much for a single person, a couple, or a small family. I recommend either brining a big batch and freezing the brined chicken that you won’t use or simply dividing the recipe accordingly depending on how much chicken you are going to cook.
5 lemons, halved
24 bay leaves
1 bunch (4 ounces) flat-leaf parsley
1 bunch (1 ounce) thyme
1/2 cup honey
1 head garlic, halved through the equator
1/4 cup black peppercorns
1 cups (10 ounces) kosher salt
2 gallons water
Combine all the ingredients in a large pot, cover, and bring to a boil. Boil for 1 minute, stirring to dissolve the salt. Remove from the heat and cool completely, then chill before using. The brine can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.
Pour the brine into a container large enough to hold the chicken pieces, add the chicken, and refrigerate for 12 hours. The chicken may be too salty if you brine the chicken for more than 12 hours.
Remove the chicken from the brine, rinse with cold water, pat dry with paper towels and let it rest at room temperature for over an hour. Roast or fry the chicken.
Here is Thomas Keller’s recipe for his amazing Buttermilk Fried Chicken.
How to Make Ad Hoc Fried Chicken At Home
Driving home from Napa, still under the spell of the best fried chicken I have ever had, I started planning on recreating Thomas Keller’s famed fried chicken. There are two things that set Keller’s fried chicken apart from the rest. First, the chicken is brined for 12 hours in a herb-lemon brine, which seasons the meat and makes it moist and juicy. The key ingredient is lemon, which goes wonderfully with chicken. And second, the chicken is dredged in flour seasoned with garlic and onion powders, paprika, cayenne, salt and pepper, then dipped in buttermilk and then dredged again in the flour.
The following day I bought myself a copy of Ad Hoc At Home and then assembled the ingredients for my very first homemade Ad Hoc fried chicken.
Buying and Brining the Bird
The recipe calls for 2-1/2 to 3 pound chickens. As Keller suggests, cooking smaller chickens, typically found in farmers’ markets and smaller grocery stores, gives the optimum meat-to-crust proportion, which is critical to excellent fried chicken.
Cut the whole chicken into 10 pieces: 2 legs, 2 thighs, 4 breast quarters, and 2 wings. Keller is a huge advocate of buying whole chickens. It’s a way to become more intimate with the act of cooking, he says and I agree. For those who have not attempted to cut a whole chicken before, let me forewarn you: it is not easy. But I guess like anything else, practice makes perfect. For the faint of heart, you can always buy a whole chicken and have it butchered before taking it home.
For the Chicken Brine
5 lemons, halved
24 bay leaves
1 bunch (4 ounces) flat-leaf parsley
1 bunch (1 ounce) thyme
1/2 cup honey
1 head garlic, halved through the equator
1/4 cup black peppercorns
1 cups (10 ounces) kosher salt
2 gallons water
Combine all the ingredients in a large pot, cover, and bring to a boil. Boil for 1 minute, stirring to dissolve the salt. Remove from the heat and cool completely, then chill before using. The brine can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.
The recipe makes two gallons of brine that is good for 10 pounds of chicken (3 to 4 whole chickens), which may be a bit much for a single person, a couple or a small family. I recommend either brining a big batch and freezing the brined chicken that you won’t use or simply dividing the recipe accordingly depending on how much chicken you are going to cook. I made fried chicken using a single 3-pound chicken and ended up using 1/3 of the amount of each ingredient and it worked fine. The important thing to remember is to keep the proportions intact.
Pour the brine into a container large enough to hold the chicken pieces, add the chicken, and refrigerate for 12 hours. The chicken may be too salty if you brine the chicken for more than 12 hours.
Remove the chicken from the brine, rinse with cold water, pat dry with paper towels and let it rest at room temperature for over an hour.
Dredging and Frying the Bird
Keller recommends peanut oil for deep frying, which I found to be rather elusive when I was shopping for groceries. I ended up using canola oil, which he, likewise, recommends. Fill the pot with at least 2 inches deep of oil and heat to 320 degrees F. If you have the luxury of two large pots and a lot of oil, you can cook the dark meat in one pot and white meat in another pot. Otherwise, cook the dark meat first, then turn up the heat and cook the white meat. Note that the oil should not come more than 1/3 of the way up the sides of the pot.
For Dredging and Frying
1 quart buttermilk
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
peanut or canola oil
For the Coating
6 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup garlic powder
1/4 cup onion powder
1 Tbsp plus 1 tsp paprika
1 Tbsp plus 1 tsp cayenne
1 Tbsp plus 1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl. Again the coating recipe is good for a large batch. For frying just a single 3-pound chicken, I found that using 1/3 of the amount of each ingredient is more than sufficient. Do not be too consumed about measuring the right amount of spices. Feel free to experiment and use the recipe just as a guide.
Transfer half the coating to a second large bowl. Pour the buttermilk on a third bowl and season with salt and pepper. Set up a dipping station: the chicken pieces, one bowl of coating, the bowl of buttermilk, and the second bowl of coating.
Start with the chicken thighs. Just before frying, dip the chicken thighs into the first bowl of coating, turning to coat and patting off the excess. Dip them into the buttermilk, then dip into the second bowl of coating. Carefully lower the thighs into the hot oil. Adjust the heat as necessary to keep the temperature of the oil at 320 degrees F. Turn the chicken pieces carefully around in the oil and monitor the temperature. Fry until the chicken is deep golden brown in color, cooked through and very crispy. The recipe recommends 11 to 12 minutes of frying but, seriously, one important thing I realized is that if you follow the recipe (or any recipe for that matter) to the dot and you get too consumed about details you end up burning the chicken! Frying for 11 to 12 minutes is not set in stone. The deep golden brown color, I think, is a better gauge of completeness.
Keller recommends skimmers and spiders instead of tongs when handling the chicken pieces. Lifting food from below, rather than pinching onto it, allows you to work the food gently.
Transfer the fried thighs to a cooling rack skin-side-up to allow excess fat to drain. Make sure that the oil is at 320 degrees F. Coat and fry the chicken drumsticks. Turn up the heat and set the oil temperature to 340 degrees F. Coat and fry the chicken breast and wings. Make sure to carefully lower the chicken pieces into the hot oil and fry until golden brown and cooked through.
Arrange the chicken on a serving platter. Add rosemary and thyme sprigs to the oil, which will still be hot and you’ll know what I mean when you drop the herb sprigs in the hot oil. Let them cook and crisp for a few seconds and use them to garnish your chicken.
A final Keller note is that they let the chicken rest for 7 to 10 minutes after it comes out of the fryer. If the chicken has rested longer than 10 minutes, keep the chicken in a 400 degree F oven for a minute or two to ensure that the skin is crisp and the chicken is hot.
I love fried chicken. I really do. The recipe sounds a bit complicated but you’ll be rewarded with genuinely tasty fried chicken.
Ad Hoc Fried Chicken Night
I have found the best fried chicken.
It’s in Yountville in Napa Valley fifty miles north of the Golden Gate. It’s served every other Monday night in Thomas Keller’s amazing Ad Hoc. The fried chicken is by far the best I have had. The skin is crispy, the meat is moist, the chicken is perfectly fried with an incredible aromatic flavor, which I was told comes from lemons, the key ingredient used in the chicken brine. They brine their chicken overnight before they are coated in buttermilk and spices and then deep fried.
Ad Hoc offers a topnotch 4 course family style menu that changes everyday using the freshest, local and seasonal ingredients. The wine list is accessible and outstanding. The staff is accommodating and friendly. The dining room is casual yet elegant: hardwood floors with tables lined with a metallic top that beautifully reflects the light toward the ceiling. Our dining experience truly reminded us of the warmth of dining at home.
The buttermilk fried chicken was amazing but there were also other noteworthy highlights throughout the evening.
Our fried chicken night started with a salad of baby mixed greens: living watercress, shaved brussels sprouts, red radish, nantes carrots, polenta croutons and sweet fennel vinaigrette. The greens with a light drizzle of the sweet fennel vinaigrette was refreshing but the real star of this dish is the polenta croutons, which is simply fried polenta, a delightful discovery.
The chicken was served family-style with roasted cauliflower and carolina gold rice, hot smoked pork and cranberry beans. The roasted cauliflowers came with capers, golden raisins, and pine nuts. The dish was so simple yet so delicious. And the rice, pork and beans dish was amazing as well.
The cheese course was Pedrozo Dairy Northern Gold with sweet butternut quickbread. And a trio of cupcakes, devil’s food, lemon curd, red velvet nicely capped off the evening.
Ad Hoc is an hour and a half away from the city but saying that it’s well worth the drive is seriously an understatement. I highly recommend the place to both locals and visitors alike.
Fried chicken night is every other Monday night. You can check out Ad Hoc’s daily menu at their site to find out what’s for dinner.
Vibrant Winter Colors in Napa Valley
Tired of the gray?
Where can you find the most vibrant winter colors? Napa Valley.
It’s mustard season in Napa. It’s the season when the grapes take a winter break and the yellow wild mustard flowers bloom. Driving down Highway 29 is a delight. Winter is a great time to go visit when the crowds are low. You can see rows upon rows of yellow wildflowers in between bare grape vines. The scenery is truly picturesque.
The Napa Valley Mustard Festival starts January 30th and runs through March. Click here for more information.
Aside from the incredible scenery and, obviously, the wonderful wine, there is also one other thing that makes a trip to Napa, particularly to the town of Yountville, worth while.
Lelenita’s Nicaraguan Tres Leches (Three Milk) Cake in Bernal Heights
If you find making your own tres leches is a bit daunting there’s a Nicaraguan bakery in Bernal Heights that makes this seriously delicious sweet treat. Check out Lelenita’s Cakes.
Lelenita’s makes delightful tres leches cakes and other Nicaraguan baked treats like the Pio Quinto, a Nicaraguan rum cake with walnuts and dark rum.
Many people believe that tres leches, a popular Latin American cake, originated from Nicaragua. There are actually two types of tres leches. One is the deliciously moist traditional sponge cake soaked in a glaze made of three types of milk, and the other is a sponge cake with a fruit filling, usually strawberry, which is not soaked in a milk glaze and is less sweet. Both are topped lavishly with meringue instead of the more common whipped topping. Meringue actually makes their cakes truly Nicaraguan. But if meringue is not your thing, Lelenita’s can bake you a cake with either a vanilla or chocolate flavored whipped topping. They also make delicious and detailed decorated cakes for weddings and all occasions.
Lelenita’s Cakes is in Bernal Heights.
3743 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415.282.2253
Milk is the New Chocolate: How to Make Tres Leches (Three Milk) Cake
For my birthday this year, Dennis graciously offered to bake me a tres leches cake. I’m actually very proud of Dennis and very proud of myself, too since I feel responsible for converting him. You see, Dennis is, or rather was, a strict chocolate only for dessert person. He loves chocolate and chocolate alone. But I have successfully managed to convince him that there is so much good stuff besides chocolate. Don’t get me wrong, I love chocolate, too. But I also love carrot cake, pineapple upside down cake and I love tres leches.
Tres leches or Pastel de Tres leches is “three milk cake” in Spanish. It is a sponge cake or butter cake soaked in, you guessed it right, three types of milk: evaporated milk, condensed milk and heavy cream. The cake is very popular in many parts of Latin America. A popular variation is adding cajeta or sweetened caramelized milk, which makes it cuatro leches, or “four milk cake”.
Making tres leches at home requires a bit of a time commitment. You need to bake the cake and then leave the cake refrigerated overnight to let it soak in the milk glaze before topping it with whipped cream. The recipe is taken from Alton Brown’s Good Eats. Note that the measurements are very precise, for instance, it’s 6 3/4 ounces cake flour, not 7 but 6 3/4 ounces by weight. Dry ingredients are by weight. Liquids are by volume. Note also that the recipe calls for a standard mixer. It will make things easier but a big bowl and some brawn will be fine, too.
For the cake
vegetable oil to coat the baking pan
6 3/4 ounces (by weight) cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
8 ounces (by weight) sugar
5 whole eggs
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
For the milk glaze
1 12-ounce can evaporated milk
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup half-half
For the whipped topping
2 cups heavy cream
8 ounces (by weight) sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Making the Cake
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly oil and flour a 13 by 9-inch metal pan and set aside.
Whisk together the cake flour, baking powder and salt in a medium mixing bowl and set aside.
Place the butter into the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment, beat on medium speed until fluffy, approximately 1 minute. Decrease the speed to low and with the mixer still running, gradually add the sugar over 1 minute. Stop to scrape down the sides of the bowl, if necessary. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and mix to thoroughly combine. Add the vanilla extract and mix to combine.
Add the flour mixture to the batter in 3 batches and mix just until combined. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and spread evenly.
Do not panic if there appears to be a very small amount of batter. It will rise and it will soak in the milk glaze later.
Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the cake is lightly golden and reaches an internal temperature of 200 degrees F.
Remove the cake pan to a cooling rack and allow to cool for 30 minutes. Poke the top of the cake all over with a skewer or fork. Allow the cake to cool completely and then prepare the glaze.
Making the glaze
Whisk together the evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk and the half-and-half in a 1-quart measuring cup. Once combined, pour the glaze over the cake.
Refrigerate the cake overnight. The tray will feel very heavy because of the milk glaze. Really heavy.
Making the whipped topping
Place the heavy cream, sugar and vanilla into the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the whisk attachment, whisk together on low until stiff peaks are formed. Change to medium speed and whisk until thick. The topping can also be made without a standard mixer. It can be done with just a large bowl, a whisk and a lot of stamina. It’s more difficult but it can be done.
Spread the topping over the cake and allow to chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
For a more festive tres leches, add some color by sprinkling candy sprinkles generously over the whipped topping.
It may appear daunting to make tres leches at home but let me assure you that the rewards are great and tasty. It’s creamy. It’s moist. It’s sweet. It’s seriously delicious.
Homemade Split Pea Soup with Homemade Cornbread
What’s another hearty soup that’s perfect in this cold weather and pairs well with warm cornbread? Split pea soup!
I usually make split pea soup when we’ve had ham. It’s a great way to use the ham hock or ham bone without throwing it away. Split pea soup can also be made without pork. For my vegetarian friends, click here for the vegetarian recipe.
Homemade Split Pea Soup
small ham hock or a ham bone
2 cups green split peas, rinsed and sorted
8 cups of cold water
1 large carrot diced
1 large celery rib diced,
1 medium onion diced
1 bell pepper diced
2 garlic cloves minced
Combine the ham hock or ham bone, split peas and water in a large pot. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for an hour.
Stir in the diced vegetables and minced garlic. For a more festive color, I use a combination of red, yellow and orange bell peppers.
Simmer until the ham hock and peas are tender, which is about another hour. Season with salt and pepper.
Remove from heat and remove the ham hock or ham bone. Throw away the bone, skin and fat. Dice the meat and return it to the soup. Some people like it soupy while others like it thick. For a thicker soup, simmer to the desired consistency. Stir to blend before serving. Serve with a piece of warm homemade cornbread or crusty bread.
Split pea soup freezes beautifully.
The recipe is culled from the Joy of Cooking with a few little changes.
Click here for the recipe for homemade cornbread.
Homemade Vegetarian Split Pea Soup
2 cups green split peas, rinsed and sorted
4 cups of vegetable broth
4 cups of water
1 large carrot diced
1 large celery rib diced,
1 medium onion diced
1 bell pepper diced
2 garlic cloves minced
Bring the split peas, water and broth to a boil in a large soup pot. Reduce the heat and simmer for an hour. Stir in the diced vegetables and minced garlic. Simmer for another hour or until the peas are tender. Season with salt and pepper. For a thicker soup, simmer to the desired consistency. Stir to blend before serving. Serve with a piece of warm homemade cornbread or crusty bread.
Split pea soup freezes beautifully.
Mom’s Hearty Homemade Chili with Homemade Cornbread
Where can you find the best cornbread in the city? Just for You Cafe in the Dogpatch.
Just for You is the place-to-be for tasty big breakfasts: fried eggs, ham, home fries and their freshly baked cornbread. I love my cornbread sweet rather than savory, but not too sweet and I love it moist with a little bit of gritty texture. Just for You’s has all these wonderful elements. Enjoy it with a generous spread of butter or with their sweet strawberry jam. The corncakes are equally good, too. They have that melt-in-your-mouth, buttery and gritty goodness that I love. And a visit to Just for You is never complete without indulging in their puffy beignets. So delightful.
Inspired by Just for You’s cornbread, I ventured out, bought myself some corn meal and made my own cornbread. And there’s no better way to enjoy a warm, fresh-out-of-the-oven piece of cornbread in this cold winter than to pair it with a tasty bowl of hearty homemade chili. For that, I solicited Dennis’ help to make his mom’s homemade chili, the chili he grew up with in chilly Ohio.
Homemade Cornbread
1-1/4 cup yellow corn meal
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup fat-free milk
1/3 cup canola oil
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Preheat the oven to 400F. Grease an 8-inch square baking dish. You can use a pyrex dish, a non-stick baking pan or you can also use a muffin pan to make corn muffins.
Combine the corn meal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Combine the milk, oil and egg in a separate bowl. After mixing them well add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and pour into your baking dish. Note that the original recipe called for a cup of flour to a cup of corn meal but for a grittier texture I added a 1/4 cup more corn meal and used 1/4 cup less flour in this recipe.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Mom’s Homemade Chili
Chili Spices
2 Tbsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder or freshly minced garlic
1/2 tsp cumin (optional)
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
Great-tasting chili is very much a cook-until-the-way-you-like-it sort of comfort food. So feel free to experiment with the spices as you wish.
1 to 1.5 lbs of extra lean ground beef
1 can black beans
1 can red kidney beans
1 large can diced tomatoes
1 small can of tomato paste
1 medium to large size onion diced
1-2 green or red bell peppers chopped
Worcestershire sauce (start with 1 Tbsp and then add more to taste)
Cooking time is 2-4 hours. Slow cooking is best.
Brown the ground beef in a large stew pot over medium heat. Don’t thoroughly cook the meat but only up to a point when most of the fat has come out. If you prefer a finer texture break up the ground beef completely but if you like a chunkier chili, as I do, break it up in larger bite size bits.
Extra lean beef (less than 5% fat) is recommended, which is the healthiest choice. If you do use extra lean beef there is no need to drain the fat out. Otherwise, drain the beef fat using a colander and return it to the pot. I think it’s a smart idea to give up the beef fat so you can indulge in butter with your bread later!
Add the diced tomatoes, tomato paste, onions, and peppers to the browned beef and mix well. It will be pretty thick but there is no need to add water here as there will be plenty as the vegetables continue to cook. Add the Worcestershire sauce and chili spices and mix well. Let this cook and come to a slow boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer. Add the red kidney and black beans to the mix and stir well together.
Now, here’s the fun part, or well, at least Dennis thinks so. Take a break and let it simmer for about an hour while stirring it occasionally. Come back and taste the chili. If you think it needs a little more oomph add more Worcestershire, salt, chili powder and perhaps more garlic powder or freshly minced garlic. Cook for another half an hour on low heat and stir well occasionally. Continue adding more salt and chili powder if you prefer but remember to stir everything well. Let it stand for at least 15 minutes before serving.
Great-tasting chili is truly a season-to-taste slow cooked meal. Chili powders have different levels of potency so feel free to experiment.
Enjoy a bowl of chili with a piece of warm cornbread or some saltine crackers on a chilly winter day. Some folks love red onions or grated cheddar with their chili but I love it just the way it is with some sweet cornbread.
For breakfast, scramble some eggs in butter and top it with chili and a piece of cornbread.
By the way, I don’t think I have found the best chili in the city. San Francisco doesn’t really strike me as a city for chili but maybe I’m wrong. What do you think?
