Recipe - History Of Slumgullion

Ingredients:
3 pound Ground or cubed chuck
One fourth cup Oil
1 qt Water
1 teaspoon Of Salt or to taste
10 Garlic cloves, chopped
3 ounce Chile powder...I like
McCormicks
1 teaspoon Ground cumin (comino)
1 teaspoon Oregano
1 teaspoon Cayene pepper...more or less
One half teaspoon Black pepper
1 tablespoon Sugar
3 tablespoon Paprika
3 tablespoon Flour
6 tablespoon Masa (fine ground corn meal)

The first "chili" recipes appeared in West Texas at the turn of the
century. They may have had their origin from old Mexican recipes, but
since most cowboys couldn't read...or for that matter, cook very good,
chili most probably got it's start due to the availability of spices and
other ingredients available in the area. A lot of ingredients available to
us now were just not available then. Most chili consisted of beef, cumin,
pepper, sugar, paprika, garlic, and masa to thicken. Tomatoes were seasonal
and usually not available. Chili powder was not manufactured at the
time...They used dried chili's (spanish for peppers)...most west texas
cowboys were Mexican. Most of the original chili did not have beans due
to the time required to soak and cook them...chuck wagons did not appear
til later in history and even then, on most ranches, the cowboy was on his
own and didn't have time to watch beans all day.

The following recipe is based on the original recipes...

CHILI

In a large skillet, saute meat in oil until browned. Add water and simmer
1 One half to 2 hours. In a small bowl, mix chili powder, salt, garlic, cumin,
oregano, cayene pepper, black pepper, sugar and paprika. Add to skillet.
Simmer 30 minutes...cooking longer will cause spices to lose flavor. In a
small bowl mix flour and masa. Wisk flour masa mixture into
chili...stirring constantly to prevent sticking. Bring mixture back to
simmer until thickened. Remove from heat. Serve over beans, rice, hot
dogs, enchiladas, burritos, or eat plain. Cheese (cheddar, longhorn, queso
blanco,etc.) goes well on top.

Note lack of tomatoes and beans... Give it a try.....KF
Posted to MCRecipe Digest V1 #489 by Bobbi Zee zpegasus@tsrcom.com on
Mar 1, 1997.