A special chili

final stages of mole pork chorizo chili

Today was a very fun day.  It started off with a trip to the grocery store.  I wanted to go a couple days ago, but it iced and snowed on Saturday and Sunday, and yesterday we had dense fog and freezing temperatures for the first half of the day, so I really didn't want to go out on the roads.  I try never to go out when there's even a hint of ice on the roads.  So today the weather was nicer although very foggy again and the trip to the grocery store was a little bit like flying through space, or so I would imagine.  I was out at 5:30 AM, and between the foggy dark and the associated lack of visibility, as well as the lack of traffic on the roads, it was an absolutely peaceful drive.

It was nice to get stocked up on eggs and milk and some other things I had run out of.  And I also picked up all the fixings for mole pork chorizo chili.

This is one of my favorite meal dishes to make.  A little bit of oil is heated in a deep pot, 4 logs of chopped chorizo without casings are added and cooked for a bit.  Then diced yellow onion, a couple bell peppers (different colors), and several different spices and seasonings are added.  Then black beans, garbanzo beans, and lots of chopped tomatoes and their juices are added and brought to a boil.  The temperature is reduced to a gentle heat and everything sits for 30 minutes to an hour.  Finally corn is added, just enough to add some additional color and texture, followed by chopped semisweet chocolate.  There's not a lot of chocolate in this, although sometimes I like to add more on a whim when I'm making it for only myself.  Otherwise only a small amount is added, a few ounces, not enough that a lot of people would detect it especially with all the spices in play.  But if you tasted a bowl without the chocolate and one with, a difference would be discernible. 

a finished bowl of mole pork chorizo chili

I like to let all this sit and simmer for additional time after the chocolate is finally added, reducing the mixture just a bit so that I can choose between eating in a bowl or filling a flour tortilla.  My son likes to fill a flour tortilla and grill it in a skillet giving it a nice toasty brown crust on each side with just a bit of crunch, and he adds cheese and corn chips inside the tortilla with the chili as well.  It's a great way to eat it.  It's only too bad you can't make a bunch of these chili burrito concoctions ahead of time.  We've tried.  The tortilla absorbs way too much moisture from the chili if it's grilled and then put away in the fridge for a a few hours, and so heating it up again is palatable but nothing special -- certainly it's best when fresh.

Personally I love just about anything in a tortilla, and this is no exception.  But tortilla or bowl, it's all good to me.  A fun dish to make that will provide meals for multiple days as the end-result is a rather large pot filled with this delicious spicy chili.