beef chili: chopped or ground? (hamburger, tomatoes, Mexican, grocery store)

[defiance]

Ok, so I've really liked chili all my life, but I can't cook to save my life.

So recently, I convinced my wife lately that she should try it, and she agreed.

When I started spooning out my chili, though, I was thoroughly confused... The meat was in chunks, rather than ground beef like I was accustomed to...

Now, it was good, no debate there... but I'd simply never seen chili done that way... and now, having tried both, I like the texture better with ground.

So, I started googling recipes and found that they seem to be about 70/30 ground/chunks... I honestly had no idea chunked beef in chili was so common!?

So what do you guys think? Anybody like chunks better? Am I dismissing a good thing too quickly?

[MSJones]

Something we love to do is get brisket ends ground up for our chili - not fine, more coarsely ground and chunky, but it's wonderful. You can ask your butcher, any meat market, and some grocery stores and they'll do it for you.

[cynwldkat]

Personally I prefer the hamburger. Probably because this is what I have always had! I love the way "I" make chili and it was using hamburger. I know there are many other ways and probably just as good but this is what I am familiar with. It's all about familiarity once again. It's hard to change what's in your mind what chile is. Does that make any sense?? Anyhow, that's how I feel.

[Rickers]

To me growing up on the Mexican boarder I tend to like it with good quality chunks of beef. I just don't like hamburger meat in anything but burgers anyway, and of coarse grinding yourself or picking a cut of beef and having the butcher grind it for you is always safest and freshest anyway. I like the Mexican dish called Chili Colorado, to me that is the grandfather of what we know of as "chili". The chili with ground beef and kidney beans is kind of a Tex-Mex dish. Many chili cook-off rules won't allow beans and that reflects the mexican roots of our common chili.

[K'ledgeBldr]

I do both- a very course ground beef and then beef cubes. And everything else is chunky- onion, tomato, peppers, etc- and I keep it thick. You'd be tempted to eat it with a fork, but use a spoon...

[Mooseketeer]

I prefer it with chopped beef, I like the texture better, it feels more like a proper dish than a "stew" so to speak and the taste of beef is more pronounced in chunks than mince IMO.
Every time I have had it in Mexico it has been in chunks, maybe it is more Tex-Mex than Mexican with minced beef ?

[Debsi]

Chili with beans is not tex-mex -- the locals around here would shoot anybody for suggesting it!

I grew up on Cincinnati-style chili made by my midwestern bred mother -- ground beef, kidney beans, a can of beer, etc. It is delicious. My m-i-l from LA makes chili with big beef chunks, no beans, and serves it with bowl after bowl of toppings ( green onions, shredded cheese, sour cream, olives, lettuce, tomato, salsa, guacamole and more I can't think of!). This is also delicious. She serves it with flour tortillas so it's basically make-your-own-burrito bar.

[MB2]

I'd prefer mine coarse ground (ground up twice with coarse ground plate on meat grinder)
Had it also in Cancun/ Mexico, where it was way coarser then I do mine.
(They probably only ground it up once, through the coarse ground plate in the grinder)
I use a lot of different beans in mine (and not only kidney!), and add CRUSHED FRESH TOMATOES......which make it taste so much better.
I like to experiment around a lot, using my husband as a "guinea pig".....LOL.

[DontH8Me]

My first boyfriend (when I was 17) sent me a postcard from Texas while traveling cross-country, and it had a recipe for "authentic Texas chili" - it included cubed beef, not ground. I tried the recipe and have been hooked ever since.

I am always wary of anything that is made by someone I don't know that includes ground beef (meatloaf, burgers, chili, tacos, etc.) - with the cubed beef you can at least see if there is something you would not want to eat. Once it's all ground up, who knows what's in there, and what sort of safehandling it has been subjected to. If you're wondering - yes, I do grind my own.

[Debsi]

Originally Posted by DontH8Me

My first boyfriend (when I was 17) sent me a postcard from Texas while traveling cross-country, and it had a recipe for "authentic Texas chili" - it included cubed beef, not ground. I tried the recipe and have been hooked ever since.

Soo........ are you going to pass it on?