Chili Pizza – Agent of Chaos
As some of you may remember, I started this chili journey to find a chili recipe – or at least a style – that I liked. I didn’t grow up with a strong chili identity, so sampling the recipes from those who did it seemed like the best way to form an opinion on a regional dish. I ate Texas-style meat chili, bean chili (and fish sauce), and gorgeous brisket chili, but nothing prepared me for a chili pizza.
At first glance, you might think that this troll recipe is some sort of culinary post designed to piss Italians and Texans up and provide anger material for people who start screaming about pineapples. But this chili was created as part of the Boy Scout chili making, which means it came from the minds of babies and is therefore pure and free from malice.
However, this does not mean that there is no chaos here. For starters, we have a combination of beef and Italian sausage that isn’t all that wild, but we also have beans (the famous Texas trigger), and one of those beans is buttery beans, also known as Lima beans . I really love lima beans, but even I would never have thought to add them to chili peppers, so I deeply respect that action. (I suspect the “butter” in the name means a buttery “crust” for our “pizza”, but perhaps I attach too much importance to that.)
This recipe also requires whole slices of pepperoni, which was inconvenient, but prolonged boiling causes them to soften, curl and fold into a size and shape that fits a spoon.
Finally, there was pineapple, which – to be honest with myself and all of you – is the only reason I chose this recipe. I love pineapple in pizza and I love being yelled at, but mostly I was curious to see how it tasted. We’ll come back to this in a moment, but I’m going to go ahead and omit the recipe (see you on the other side).
As usual, I haven’t changed this recipe much, except that I used red pepper instead of green because I already had red pepper and I still like it better. I also browned the meat in batches, left the fat from both in the saucepan, then sautéed the onions and peppers in butter until tender and lightly browned around the edges. After that, I added the garlic, cooked until it was nice and aromatic, then added the spices and let them bloom before adding the tomato products, wine and pineapple. I let it all simmer for 20 minutes, then add the beans and simmer for another 10 minutes. Then I let it sit overnight because I do it with all my chili peppers (because it tastes better).
The next day (and this is today) I heated the bowl and added some cheese, some hot sauce (garlic and Tabasco cayenne) and some pickled jalapeno slices, because pickled jalapeno slices are a hell of a pepperoni and pineapple pizza bomb. …
Guys, this chili is fun and pineapple makes it. You won’t get any noticeable pineapple chunks; in fact, if no one told you he was there, you probably wouldn’t even know. It adds a fruity sweetness and acidity – very similar to tomatoes, but with a slightly tropical flavor.
As for pepperoni, I wanted to like it more than I do. It lost some of its flavor during the cooking process, although it could have been because everything in my nearest grocery store was some shitty “untreated” organic pepperoni brand that was pretty bland from the get-go. The beans were lovely and while I appreciate the impeccable quality that the limas bring, it would be fun to play with the Italian white beans.
My only caveat is that I would like to season the beef with salt as the chunks containing the sausage were much more flavorful than the chunks containing the beef. I could also add some oregano, just to make it more pizza (and puzzled).
All in all, it’s a fun chili, party chili, chili cooked for play days. I may not be making this exact recipe anymore – I rarely do the same recipe twice – but I fully plan on using shredded pineapple as a secret ingredient in future chili recipes. Not only does it taste good, it also causes chaos, and creating chaos is one of my favorite hobbies.