Fandom Food: Kevin’s Famous Chili

Mr. Food It Yourself and I are fans of the TV show “The Office”. (The American version. I can’t tolerate the British version.) In one episode, Kevin Malone (played by Brian Baumgartner) makes a huge kettle of his famous chili for the office. He then spills the entire pot on the office floor. As art imitates life imitates art imitates life imitates art, Brian Baumgartner is, indeed a chili aficionado. Since the chili episode of The Office aired, he has been a sought after judge at chili cook-offs. Recently, the winning recipes from some of the competitions he has judged were compiled into a cookbook, which Mr. Food it Yourself has purchased. Mr. Food It Yourself set the goal to try each recipe in the book and we started with Baumgartner’s own recipe (which is also available on line). Here is what happened when I made Kevin’s Famous Chili.

Toasting the ancho chilies was the most challenging part. Thankfully, it was the first part of the recipe. If you are looking for ancho peppers at the supermarket, I found them in the Latin/Hispanic food aisle. Fun fact: ancho chilis are dried poblano chilis. Mr. Food It Yourself and I decided to make a half batch, so I used only two. As you can see in the photo, I wore gloves. I also wore gloves while chopping the jalapeno. It was easy enough to remove the stem and seeds from the chilis. However, the toasting process got very…I will say “aromatic”. I turned on the kitchen vent fan to full blast, and after a short coughing fit I was back to cooking.

As the ground beef cooked in the pot, I put the toasted anchos into my handy spice grinder with the cumin seed, as I only had whole cumin, for a good grind. When they were reduced to a fine powder, I added the other seasonings to my mis en place container.

After not overcooking the onion, (the critical part of this recipe) I added the spices to the pot. The fragrance was amazing. I added 12 fluid oz. of lager. Somehow, beer has become a strangely polarizing beverage of late. I proudly used a bottle of my favorite beer with a wig-wearing, rouge daubed, 100% ‘MURICAN spokes person. I swear to Godzilla this is not a political blog.

With the rest of the ingredients added to the pot, I left it to simmer gently while I did other things for two hours. A note- I used one and a quarter cup of drained, canned tomatoes, as the fresh ones are still not looking really wonderful here in central MA. And then the whole pot went into the refrigerator. My top tip for chili- plan to eat it the day after you make it. Chili is always better the next day.

The next day, Mr. Food It Yourself put the pot back on the stove to reheat. Once it warmed up, we both tucked in. It tasted very good. The ancho chilis gave it just enough heat and a delightful toasty note. I enjoyed it. Mr. Food It Yourself noted, however, that it was a bit thin for his taste. We will need to keep trying recipes until we find one he deems adequately thick.

The internet is full of Celebrity Recipes. Have you tried any? How did it turn out? Share in the comments!