Chili ( or is it Chile) Powder!
I’ve been trying to figure out how to get started. I’m going with a Chili Powder rant!
What the fuck is chili powder? If you don’t cook, you don’t care. That could be a philosophical statement, and/or a general condemnation of a lot of folks. But what I mean is, if you don’t take your spices seriously, you probably never asked yourself: “What the fuck is chili powder?”
I found myself asking this question a while back. And the quick answer is it’s a spice mix of cumin, garlic powder, paprika, oregano, and cayenne; not necessarily in that order, and not if you’re Alton Brown. In that case, arbol, cascabel, and ancho chiles become involved along with spice grinders. But basically, it’s a spice mix, sort of like curry powder. And like curry powder, the devil is in the details. Folks can agree on the basic ingredients, but not on how much of each and what adjuncts might make it your own. Anyone serious about their chili (or curry) has their own, sometimes closely guarded, recipe, a little like Colonel Sander’s 11 herbs and spices. (Did you know colonel doesn’t have an “r” in it – English! Another mystery and future rant.)
But what if I took some of Alton’s aforementioned peppers and ground them to a powder? Wouldn’t that be chili powder too? Well no, it would be chile powder. And it would be great if folks would stick with that that distinction. Wikipedia doesn’t really help with the confusion: “Chili powder is the dried, pulverized fruit of one or more varieties of chili pepper, sometimes with the addition of other spices.” I have a bottle of Chipotle Chili Pepper and a bottle of Ancho Chile Pepper.
But that’s not really my issue here. I can pretty much figure out what’s in the bottle, be it ground peppers or a spice mix. My issue here is when a recipe calls for chili powder. I’m not worried about the weeknight, “slap together some chili mac” for dinner recipe: A little ground beef, a little chili powder, a can of tomatoes and we’re done. I’m talking about recipes like this one. This is a professional recipe from a celebrity chef. I’ll spend two days preparing these ribs. A little accuracy would be appreciated. The recipe calls for chili powder. But four of the five basic ingredients are already in the recipe. This is like saying use this much cumin, this much garlic powder, this much paprika and this much cayenne. Then throw in an indeterminate amount of each of the above. The only chili powder ingredient that isn’t already there is oregano. Why not just specify how much (if any) oregano to add, and remove the imprecision of the “chili powder” (Would that be cumin forward chili powder, or paprika forward chili powder? Or maybe it’s Tio Alton’s chili powder.) By the way, if you decide to make this rub, two tablespoons of salt is WAY TOO MUCH. The position of the ingredient in the list tells you it should have been two teaspoons of salt.
I ran across a recipe for “The Best Homemade Taco Seasoning”. In the overlong run-up to the recipe (there’s another rant to put to “paper” someday), this culinary advisor lists chili powder thusly:
Chili powder- for some added heat.She’s already got every chili powder ingredient in the recipe, save the heat (generally cayenne). How much heat does the chili powder have? Wouldn’t you be more precise by specifying an amount of cayenne chile powder (pepper)? Or even better, suggesting adjusting the flavor of the heat with chipotle chile powder or ancho chile powder? When you specify chili powder, you’re duplicating most of your ingredients without really knowing how much of each. And at the quantities here, you could easily be doubling some, maybe all, of the other listed ingredients.
And by the way, if you use “chili powder”, is it really even “homemade”. (Homemade by McCormick).
I should point out that this is called “The Best Homemade Taco Seasoning”. But if you made it with two different chili powders, chances are they wouldn’t be the same and neither would your taco seasoning. And kind of by definition, they couldn’t both be “The Best”.
There’s another one here. These are “5 of the BEST Dry Rub Recipes for Chicken – Best Spice Blends” Number two is basically a recipe for chili powder (save oregano) with some more chili powder thrown in. If you’re going to make up a spice mix then make it from scratch and don’t throw someone else’s “secret” recipe in.
By all means, find a “chili powder” that you like, especially if you want to slap together some quickie chili mac or make some savory oatmeal in the morning. Better yet, make your own basic chili powder for the same purpose, and then add to it, or otherwise adjust to your tastes and/or the meal you’re preparing. And even use it in the recipes above. At least then you’d know the quantities of the duplicated ingredients. I just object to the ambiguity of spice mix recipes that call for chili powder of unknown ingredients and proportions as part of the mix. You know what Reacher says: In an investigation, details matter”.