Chili and CI

Well, it is getting that time of year for me, the leaves are falling, temperatures are dropping, and the AC is officially turned off for the year. And one of my favorite things, that just seems to be a tradition is I start to make chili. I don't know why, but it doesn't get eaten in the summer lol.

Well, I know people have reservations about cooking anything with a lot of tomato in CI. But I was strongly considering cooking my chili in my DO's this year. Tomato juice and paste are used, a lot of hamburger as well.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Tips? Criticisms?
 
I think it depends on how well-seasoned your DO is. You may consider making about a half recipe the first time in your DO, just to learn if there's an issue.

I prefer green chili (no tomatoes, no beans), and have made it in my DO. Had a surprisingly iron taste, so now it's made in the Calphalon. I think the DO is well seasoned, which may shoot my initial theory in the foot.

Go ahead and make your chili in the iron, the worst that can happen is you get a batch which isn't quite what you were looking for. Once it's done cooking, take it out of the CI immediately - that may have been the biggest mistake I made. It won't be chili weather here for at least a month, maybe longer....:(

Steve
 
I use my unmarked Wagner DO to make chili, and my hubby likes to make it in a #9 or #10 skillet. We haven't had a problem with this vis-a-vis the tomato, but we always start by cooking onion in grape seed or olive oil, then adding the ground beef. I also make it a point to get the finished chili out of the CI as soon as it is done. We may have just been lucky with this technique, but it seems to be working. (My pans don't have a lot of seasoning, as I scrub them too much for it to build up.--Sorry Hilditch; it's a vice, I know.:))
 
Well, I brown my meat, add my onions, add tomato juice, tomato paste, then all of my seasoning and let it simmer for a couple of hours. With beef being the price that it is I certainly don't want to waste the money and end up with chili tasting like iron
 
To me a well seasoned DO means the iron is covered in a hard coat of seasoning due to it being used as a frying pan occasionally and is not a stranger to popcorn.

Joseph, I use the same sequence with at least 20% fat in a well seasoned DO. All cooking done in the DO with 2 lbs of ground beef for 3 qt’s of chili. Testing the complete batch with litmus paper it surprised me with a 6 and included paste, puree & whole. A six is neutral, not acidic. A 5 would even be OK. YMMV.

When done, all comes out of the DO while still hot and it gets washed. No iron flavor* and no damage to the seasoning. Only your nose can tell it just made good chili.

Hilditch

* If you scrubbed all the seasoning off, like some here, your chicken stew may taste like iron. :cry:
 
Well I sure don't scrub, I merely take, while very very warm, a bristle brush and lightly scrub under scalding hot water, place in the oven at 200 degrees for fifteen minutes, spread a light coat of oil, and then wipe it off with a cloth and let it cook.
 
A six is neutral, not acidic.

Actually 7 is neutral. Anything below 7 is acidic. I am thinking what you meant to say was that 6 is within the normal range (6-8) that you would find in drinking water.

I am also surprised that you are getting a reading of 6 as I would have expected it to be lower.

Mike
 
For reference. In parentheses are the concentrations of hydrogen ions relative to deionized water. Note that it is exponential, not linear.

pH
7 Pure (deionized) water (0)
6 Milk (10)
5 Black coffee (100)
4 Tomato juice (1,000)
3 Orange juice (10,000)
2 Lemon juice, vinegar (100,000)
1 Stomach (hydrochloric) acid (1,000,000)
0 Battery acid (10,000,000)
 
For reference. In parentheses are the concentrations of hydrogen ions relative to deionized water. Note that it is exponential, not linear.

pH
7 Pure (deionized) water (0)
6 Milk (10)
5 Black coffee (100)
4 Tomato juice (1,000)
3 Orange juice (10,000)
2 Lemon juice, vinegar (100,000)
1 Stomach (hydrochloric) acid (1,000,000)
0 Battery acid (10,000,000)

There aren't actually any hydrogen ions in aqueous solution. The correct ion is hydronium. Also, pH 7 would be a relative 1, not 0.

A pH of 6 is higher than I expect for tomato based stews. Litmus paper is generally good only for a rough estimate of pH, particularly when used in a staining mixture like chili. I think it unlikely for the pH of anyone's chili to be 6 or higher. I have, however, seen beans and tomato sauce reportedly with a pH of 5.5-5.8. Hilditch, do you include beans in chili?

The pKa of citric acid (major acid in tomatoes) is about 3.5, and the pH of most tomatoes based products is 4.0 - 5.0. Citric acid won't be lost in evaporation and is thermally stable well above the boiling point of water. The only reasonable way to reduce the pH of a tomatoes based stew to 6 would be addition of a base to neutralize it. Most foods tend to be acidic, but something like beans could potentially increase pH a bit.
 
First i should not write about food acidity with a soil report sitting under my nose. It said the soil had a ph of 7 and it should be 6 for fescue. 7 is neutral, not 6.

Second, my litmus paper is many years old and cost me about a buck. It says my lemon juice and cider vinegar are 3’s so my 6 may be a bit high too. It works as a relative guide for me as I can detect some effect on the seasoning with a long cook of just yellow onions to get them golden. My paper says they are a 5, but are probably really a 4. The comfort line is when this paper shows a 6.

Yes, each 3 qt. batch includes 1 can of drained red kidney beans. I think it’s a Southern thing to get one more serving and it doesn’t hurt the chili.

Hilditch
 
Some would say inclusion of beans in chili is blasphemy. I'm not one of them. I always do as well, though I always call them "chili beans" at that point. Texans will soon be here to lynch us, H.
 
Haha I'd agree with that statement - Texas-style chili has no beans, and that's how I make mine. But I have no problem with people putting beans in their chili, as long as they don't try to call it Texas-style...

My chili also contains tomatoes and this acidity thing in CI is of interest. Has anyone tried adding a little baking soda to raise the pH to a more neutral level, and did it affect the flavor quality of the results?
 
As a fifth generation Texan I can affirm the separation of beans from the chili. I am not sure why, but I grew up with pinto beans and white rice in separate bowls, available to add to the chili. Which I always did (and still do) add to the chili.

I can tell you for a fact that at the Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show Chili Cook Off you will be disqualified if you have beans in your chili. Go figure. I add them just before the jalapenos and chopped onions every time I eat chili.

The right way is the way YOU like it.

Jack
 
Haha I'd agree with that statement - Texas-style chili has no beans, and that's how I make mine. But I have no problem with people putting beans in their chili, as long as they don't try to call it Texas-style...

My chili also contains tomatoes and this acidity thing in CI is of interest. Has anyone tried adding a little baking soda to raise the pH to a more neutral level, and did it affect the flavor quality of the results?

Well, it would make the chili bubbly.... Besides that, acidity is used as an ingredient because our tastes have evolved in such a way as to encourage us to eat fruits and other acidic items which are healthy foods. Furthermore, acidic foods provide a chemical environment in which our taste receptors work better. I would bet that inclusion of enough baking soda to neutralize the acidity of the chili would lead to a bland tasting chili that no amount of salt could make right.

As a side note, this is one of the reasons to add salt to any bread recipe that uses baking soda or baking powder. Both lead to a nearly neutral final product and the salt adds the ion content that allows our taste buds to do thing things they do.
 
Yes, I agree, acidity is part of balancing the flavor profile, which is why I asked if anybody's tried it and what the effect was.

But you can add acidity back later, with vinegar or wine for example, which would have its own effect of flavor...

I know, I'm going off the rails here - when I cook my chili I put in the ingredients and cook them (more or less). But I've never done chili in a cast iron pot; my chili does heavily rely upon blended dried chiles like in the main site recipe but it also includes tomatoes, so I'm just thinking experimentally and wondering if anyone has actually tried these ideas, and how they worked...
 
Eric, when asked who makes the best chili most of us here say; Me. I don’t want to mess with my chili or try to trick it just so I can cook it in CI. I’m lucky that the recipe chosen does not eat the seasoning. If it did it would quickly go back to SS or enamel before anything would be changed.

If one wanted to decrease the acidity of a recipe to use seasoned CI the addition of meat, fat, butter, cheese or even water should get the recipe to acceptable levels. Leave the Rolaids and the lime out.

Hilditch
 
Good point. I especially like the "who makes the best chili" observation. My recipe, I've spent 20 years refining it and I agree, I'd rather keep doing what's been working than change it just to cook in CI.

But at the same time, I'm not above a little experimentation... ;)
 
I made chili in my #9 Griswold DO last weekend and have been doing so since I got it a couple years ago. I havent had any issues with it.
 
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