Chili doesn't have to be five-alarm hot to warm you up
I've been eating chili for so long I can't even remember my first bowl.
Some people I know are afraid of chili because they don't know if it will be too spicy or not. They've probably seen those shows on TV where a guy eats chili that sets his mouth on fire. I've had some chili that is too spicy, but it doesn't have to be that way. When you make your own you can control how hot and spicy it is.
One story goes that chili was invented by the Aztecs who killed the Spanish conquistadors who were trying to take over their land. The Aztecs cut them up and cooked them with chile peppers and other vegetables.
The story I like better is about the cowboys in Texas who ate chili along the cattle trail. The trail cook would put fresh chile peppers and herbs in a pot with whatever fresh meat they had around ... sometimes it was cow, sometimes it was rabbit or rattlesnake.
I've never had rattlesnake in chili, but I have had chili with chorizo. I also like chili made with beef and black beans.
A bowl of chili warms me up and relaxes on a cold winter day. It's the perfect food to eat after sledding or shoveling snow.
A word from Mom: I remember chili parties with post-college friends where we tried to out-hot each other; the best chili was determined by the number of beers it took to cool off your mouth.
So when I first started cooking for a toddler I had to lighten my touch with the chili powder and jalapeños. My focus turned to balancing the heat with herbs, like cumin and coriander (cilantro seed) and oregano, and developing layers of flavor by pan roasting the spices or livening things up with some smoky chipotle peppers or a bit of cocoa powder.
Jerome's chili is very easy to make and family-friendly; evenly flavored with Mexican chili powder (look for it in a McCormick jar or get ancho chili powder from a bulk bin), paprika and cumin. The spices used in the chorizo as well lend a lot of flavor to the pot and the roasted canned tomatoes might just give you visions of sitting round the campfire with ranch hands in the Texas plains.
If it is too spicy for anyone, temper it with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of cheese or chase it with a glass of milk. The fat in dairy foods washes the heat away much better than water, or beer.
Ÿ Jerome Gabriel is in sixth grade and has been helping in the kitchen since he could hold a spoon. His mother, Deborah Pankey, is food editor at the Daily Herald.