My favorite part of my favorite movie, The Blues Brothers, is when John Belushi is in Aretha Franklin's restaurant and he asks her, "Got any fried chicken?" Upon which she puts her hand on her hip, gives him the hairy eyeball, and says - like a boss - "Best damn chicken in the state."
Well, I make the best damn chili in the state. True, I live in Illinois. But in my younger days I had fantasies of travelling down to Terlingua,Texas for the Great Chili Cook-off, where I would cook up a batch of my fabulous chili, wearing a prom dress, and walk off with first prize. In stilettos.
(Nowadays I would rather set my head on fire than travel to Texas. Unless I was invited. By Willie Nelson. And promised a lot of weed. Then, maybe.)
But back to the chili. This recipe is my own invention, and here's the story.
It all started with my Sausage and Mushroom Sauce. Easy, peasy. Some hot Italian sausage, some mushrooms, canned tomatoes. A little olive oil, salt and pepper. Maybe a dash of oregano, but really - and this is the secret - the sausage seasons the sauce. Perfectly. I've even made this sauce with that plant-fake Italian sausage, and you know? It wasn't bad.
So, one day I was thinking: If sausage can season this sauce, could chorizo season chili? Like, make the beans, add the tomatoes, and just throw in some fried chorizo?
Yup. And a star was born.
Let me tell you a few things about chorizo before I give you the recipe. I'm talking about Mexican chorizo as opposed to Spanish chorizo, which is a different thing altogether. Mexican chorizo, at least the stuff I use, comes in a 13 oz. package, and it's two plastic-wrapped tubes of loose sausage. You take off the outer packaging, snip the tubes at one end and down the sides a bit, and peel off the plastic. Then fry the chorizo in some hot olive oil, breaking it up with a fork. I use Supremo Beef Chorizo Original Picante. (Picante = Spicy, but it also comes in mild, for big babies.) There's a pork version of this chorizo, too, if you prefer.