Gotta make enough chili for about 250 folk to put on hotdogs

[struggle4progress]

It's a big cookout: not making chili as a dish but as a condiment

Anybody got any advice?

I was gonna take off from a recipe MineralMan posted here a while back

[grasswire]

1. I have a quantity cookbook

You want me to check out the quantities for a large recipe? This is a book my mother used when she cooked for a sports camp in the summer and for a college.

[struggle4progress]

2. Maybe. Here's the thing: it's a big picnic with a serving line. Organizers

plan a hamburger and two hotdogs per person, plus salad and desserts. The chili is like a condiment for the burgers and dogs. So I'm figuring everybody is getting enough meat from the burgers and dogs, and the chili will be offered by spoonful just for flavor

I don't need 50 or 100 gallons. If I count on average 1/4 cup per person (figuring not everybody will want it), that would tell me a gallon for every 64 persons, so I think about 4 gallons of chili ought to do for 250

So I was going to go with 10-15 lbs of ground beef (uncooked weight), drained and mostly degreased, throw in some crushed tomato, spice, beans, and a bit of vegetable for other flavor -- the other half of the volume being a mix of beans with a bit of canned tomato

I'm inclined to make it spicy enough to taste, since people don't get big mouthfuls: the bites will come with some bun and burger or dog, maybe some slaw. But since I like my food really hot, I'd aim for what I think is mildly warm

So what I really need is advice on:

Is 50% beans too much? Is 4 gallons way too little? How careful should I be about my hot?

Some quantity advice on all that might help

:)

[hippywife]

3. If can't help you with the quantity information

but since it is being served as a condiment, I would totally leave out the beans altogether, but that's just my preference. It's not that I don't like beans in chili, I do. But I think they make a sandwich with chili on it even more sloppy and ungainly than it already is. I would hate to find beans on my coney. :O

Also count on something else. Some people wanting just a bowl chili. It will happen.

Good luck with your event! :hi:

[struggle4progress]

4. You're the second person to tell me to leave out the beans, so I guess I'll have to listen!

:( I hate listening to other people :)

Thanks!

[yellerpup]

11. You might consider

adding textured vegetable protein, if you can find tofu cheaper. Once it is in the spicy sauce, no one will be able to tell it isn't ground meat and it will be lower in fat. :hi:

[struggle4progress]

12. That's an interesting idea. I may try it next time

I always cook the meat first, drain it well to degrease it, then skim any remaining grease when the stuff is bubbling in the pot, but tofu picks up flavors well and could be a good ingredient in sauces like thisw

[hippywife]

13. So how did it turn out? n/t

[struggle4progress]

15. I made it waaay too mild for my own taste: I grew up on TexMex

and "hot" to me means loaded up with jalapeno or more, which I really like

But I figured I wasn't cooking for a bunch of degenerates like myself with burned-out taste buds, desperately seeking to recapture the old "Holy schmoly! I think this stuff is eating holes in my flesh! Now that's good!" thrill

So I sauteed all the spices, bubbled the chili real slow non-stop for two days, and then skimmed the oils before carrying it to the feed

You could smell the warm spices and get a slow warm in the back of your throat with a bit of odor up the backside of the nose, but it wasn't going to set off any fire alarms, especially if one only had a couple of spoonfuls on a dog with a bun

I think it was OK. But it makes me want to cook up a real barn-burner for myself :)

[hippywife]

16. Then it was a success!

Great job! You went to a whole lot more trouble than most people would have for such a huge feed. :thumbsup:

[yellerpup]

14. You are always so resourceful.

There must be a lot of peace of mind in your organization when you are in charge of any element. You have my admiration. :salute:

[grasswire]

5. I was just gonna tell you to leave out the beans....LOL

I see our C&B-ers are on the ball. You're looking for a coney type of chili. In some cases it's just a real flavorful thick meat sauce.

[struggle4progress]

6. Yeah. I'll sub diced onion, bell pepper, and tomato for some of the beans

and add more meat

[MajorChode]

7. Personally I would just go with canned chili

Find a big box store that sells the big cans. There's a couple of reasons for this. For one, it's going to be pretty much impossible to predict how much chili you will need with any degree of accuracy. By using canned chili, you can always get more than you think you'll need and return the rest if you have leftovers. The second reason is you don't need really good chili to lather on hotdogs. Any subtle flavors you might add to homemade chili will be lost on the rest of the ingredients. I love making homemade chili. If I were making it for a main course, there's no way I'd use canned, but for hotdogs, canned is fine with me and I suspect with just about everyone else it's the same. You would be hard pressed to save money making it fresh yourself, especially if you have a lot of leftovers.

[struggle4progress]

8. Good thinking -- but too late!

I went with about 15 lb of ground beef, drained and degreased, about 9 lb of chopped onion and bell pepper, about 4 lb of crushed tomato, with a whopping dose of garlic and big handfuls of chili seasoning to taste

Got about four gallons simmerin on the stovetop now

I'll taste again later tonight and again tomorrow to see if it needs more spicing or beef base

[grasswire]

9. if you think it needs tweaking...

...try some worcestershire, some cumin powder, some celery seed, some brown sugar, some vinegar.

Any of those will pop.

Google suggests that the original Coney sauce recipe is this:

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/423/AW_Coney_Island_Sauce52575.shtml

[struggle4progress]

10. I put celery, celery seed, cumin, and vinegar in it yesterday!

But I'll certainly consider the worcestershire!

Many thanks for the link: studying it now :)