Inspired by an episode of Emeril Live, I tried to make a sausage-based chili in the crockpot on Sunday for Scott and I.
The problem with it, we agreed, was that I seasoned it too heavily to be eaten by itself. It needed to be tempered by something, like rice, or sour cream, or just not to go overboard as I did on flavoring it. It's not that Scott and I dislike hot, spicy food...but there was no counterbalance here, and it sorely needed one.
But the recipe itself worked well and makes a "meaty chili"...and is in the extended entry
Ingredients:
2 pounds of sausage.
--This time around I used a ring of Hillshire Farm smoked sausage, and a pound of ground chorizo sausage (possibly one of the things that made it too hot)
2 cans of Beans
--I used a can of black beans and a can of kidney beans. I think you could realistically add a third can here if you wanted, or a can of Mexicorn, or something else.
1 14 oz. can of tomato soup (Campbells)
16 oz. jar of salsa or picante sauce
-I used picante sauce since Scott likes neither diced tomatoes or diced peppers.
28 oz. of canned tomato products
--I am rather vague here because you can make your chili individualized by this "plug-in". Back in NYC, my family would traditionally just use tomato soup here, making a very soupy chili. Personally, I've learned through my own experimentation that I like having some diced tomatoes in the mix, it gives the chili some texture. Sunday, I used Enchilada Sauce and Taco sauce. (since Scott dislikes the diced tomatoes as noted above)
Instructions:
Dice or cut into chunks, and if not already cooked, cook the sausage in a pan as per normal. Even if it is pre-cooked, proceed to brown it.
In the meantime combine the remaining ingredients, plus any desired spices, in the slow cooker's basin. Add the cooked and browned sausage to this, mix together well.
Cook 3-4 hours on high, or 6-8 hours on low. Chili is one of those dishes which does better the longer you cook it, so that all the flavors mingle and infect every morsel of sausage, every bean and every drop of the tomato base.
Especially if you've seasoned it heavily, serve this with a good starch to soak up some of that spice--rice, pieces of bread, etc. You could even ladle this into a tortilla if you wanted.
Posted by Jvstin at October 20, 2003 12:03 PM