Venison Chili

[adamsredlines]

I'm following a traditional recipe that calls for pork and beef, replacing both with venison.
It calls for a quart of water...should I exchange that for broth, and if so, should it be beef or chicken?
Will be looking for suet, and will use bacon grease for the pork fat.

2 pounds beef shoulder, cut into ½-inch cubes
1 pound pork shoulder, cut into ½-inch cubes
¼ cup suet
¼ cup pork fat
3 medium-sized onions, chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 quart water
4 ancho chiles
1 serrano chile
6 dried red chiles
1 tablespoon comino seeds, freshly ground
2 tablespoons Mexican oregano
Salt to taste

 

[deerwhacker444]

Either one won't make much difference, you've got plenty of ingredients to season whichever one you use. I prefer to use low-sodium broth in mine.

 

[D. Hargrove]

I prefer beef broth, but like @deerwhacker444 said, all personal preference.

 

[Shadowrider]

I'd ditch the suet and pork fat and substitute 1/3 lb of chopped real bacon. And I just HAVE to have tomatoes and cumin in mine. If you really want to set it off, go easy or ditch the salt altogether and add a little fish sauce (probably 2 TBS max), use low sodium chicken stock, roll all the meat up into a ball or large pattie and cook on a grate over the top of all the rest in a dutch oven on the grill with some smoke wood. When the meat gets to about 150 internal crumble it up, put it in the pot and simmer for about 30 minutes. Your recipe has definitely got potential.

Edit: Crap I just saw you are using cubed meat. In that case cook it over the top and cube it afterward. Drape the bacon on top of the meat while it's cooking.

Edit again: On the fish sauce, go easy as it's potent and salty. You won't taste the fish at all but it'll meld all those flavors. It's like magic or something.

 

[rc508pir]

No beans????? Chili gotta have beans!!!

 

[adamsredlines]

I'm trying this as close as possible as its a traditional recipe from basically when they first started making it in Texas. I found the suet and had the bacon grease so figured that was a reasonable sub. I'm using venison that is cut chili style by the butcher so it should be good to go. I think I'll probably just use this one as is and then adapt for the next batch using some of the above suggestions.

http://www.chilicookoff.com/History/history_of_chili.asp

 

[adamsredlines]

No beans????? Chili gotta have beans!!!

I asked about chili, not bean stew

 

[LBnM]

Made plenty of it the decade I lived in the Rockies (with Elk.) Never used suet but substituted Pork sausage for it. Same with meatloaf, burgers, etc.

 

[adamsredlines]

Well if anybody IS curious about Suet, Harvard Custom Meats in Tulsa sells it. We'll see how it goes

I've only got 1.5# of chili meat so I'm going to either cut the recipe in half, or use that chili meat and add in sliced up venison sausage as I have a few pounds of it left. TBD at this point.

 

[deerwhacker444]

I'm trying this as close as possible as its a traditional recipe from basically when they first started making it in Texas.

I'm thinking there's a reason why nobody makes it close to the original any more...