Chilli (chilly) cook-off.

[McNulty]

We had a chance last week to go to the local New Castle Annual Chilli Cook-off. The night was a tad chilly at 23F with a bit of a breeze working up but went anyways. I donned "The Beast"(my WPG MacKenzie) along with several other layers. The chilli ranged from pork to beef to venison and Elk, mild to sooo hot it seemed like it was melting the spoon. The only place to get out of the wind was the micro-brew tent, so we spent some time there. The three micro-brew folks had 12 different styles of beer and most put the fires out from some of the hotter chillis. There were about 15 different chillis to sample and I asked for recipes from most except the uber hot ones. Most would give the recipe, but others balked at releasing old family secrets. It was fun and the chillis kept me warm for the most part.


Sorry for the bad lighting on this one.


McNulty

[madmacs]

Sounds like a good time was had...

I only have 1 chilli tip... Throw away the chilli powder and put jalepeno's (fresh or pickled) in instead when you're cooking it... Gives it a nice hot burst (from 30 seconds to a few minutes depending on how hot you go) of heat without it meaning that you cant taste anything else for hours... I suspect it's something to do with it not leaving powdered pepper on the inside of your mouth.

I have done it with habanero too which actually allows you to taste the pepper...