3 sec cast
Reagents:
Mystery Meat
Small Flame Sac
Use: Occasionally belch flame at enemies struck in melee for the next 10 min.
Whoa, lemme tell ya, it will happen.
Chili is pretty straight forward in my house - saute onions and garlic, brown the meat and toss in the slow cooker with diced tomatoes, spices and your choice of veggies. For this recipe I used:
2 onions, sliced5 cloves of garlic, flattened
Lean ground beef
one sweet orange pepper
one sweet yellow pepper
13 hot teeny peppers (Hot Thai "very hot")
2 cans of diced tomatoes
Chili powder
SavoryCayenne pepper
Oregano
Thyme leaves
Italiano Spice
Hot chili powder
Onion powder
Garlic powder
Salt
Lemon juice
Normally I would add a can for kidney beans and a can of brown beans, but I feel like the "belching of flames" listed in the use of the dragonbreath chili would come from the wrong end, if ya know what I mean.
The recipe calls for mystery meat, so I think you could make this with whatever you had on hand - chicken, stewing beef, pork of some kind, hell, even tofu - but braise that bad boy first or it will be mush. I like to slice the onions and saute them in olive oil with garlic until they begin to brown, then I toss em in the slow cooker. For the garlic cloves I like to crush the clove under the flat side of a large knife, it helps to release the garlic juice and increase the nums factor. That's what my husband says anyway. I will also brown the meat on it's own in the pan after the onions and garlic are done. This is less for flavour and more to get rid of the fat. I don'y care how lean the cut of meat is, I would rather de-grease it in the pan than have to skim it off the top of the slow cooker mix.
Add the meat to the onions and garlic in the slow cooker and add two cans of diced tomatoes. Alternatively you could use beef/chicken/veggie broth if tomatoes aren't your thing. Now add the spices. I do not have quantities for the spices because I really have no idea. First I place a generous carpet of chili powder over the contents of the slow cooker, followed by a sweep of cayenne and savory, a speckling of oregano and thyme, a few shakes of Italiano, a layer of salt etc. I will also re-season half way through the cooking process, since the meat is already cooked the slow cooker is used less for "cooking" and more for "flavour infusing device." Mix it up, cover it and walk away.
Now for the veggies - I like my veggies to have a bit of firmness, which is why I add them half way through. I didn't use celery or tomatoes or any other nummy veggies because they were not in my fridge. I also enjoy large chunks of veggies, it saddens me if I take a bite of chili and I don't know if I've just eaten zucchini or pepper.
I can't stress enough you need to be careful with hot peppers. To de-seed them I cut off the top, hold it upside down and roll it between my thumb and finger to get the seeds out. If possible, wear gloves. I, being use to dealing with peppers, forgot how to be careful. I thought I kept a "clean hand" and my day ended in the washroom trying to flush my face with ice water. The next day I still have hot pepper residue under my thumb nail.
Add the veggies and hot peppers to the chili, mix and cover. Why 13 peppers? Because it looked nice in the picture. I like hot, so does the rest of my house, but heat is a subjective thing. My iron-stomached teenager devoured two bowls whilst calling me a wimp for breaking into a sweat during my first bowl. My husband found it just this side of painful, and loved every bite. I figured, since the dish is called "Dragonbreath Chili" it really couldn't be too hot. A bland chili would be a disappointment, and even if you amped up the heat I don't think it would be a disappointment because anything that gets you closer to breathing fire is a success.
About an hour away from dinner, taste the chili. I really like a squirt of lemon juice in the chili, but too much will have you scrambling to add more spices to temper the acid. This should be the last time you add spices to the chili. Good luck.
