Cooking with Jim Beam

Getting back to boozing and blogging the past few weekends has been fun.  It's also reminded me that we have an inordinate amount of ancient brown liquors on the bar that we'll never get rid of if we limit ourselves to cocktailing.  So we return to the kitchen with a long overdue post about Cooking with Booze!  This week's liquor for the larder: whiskey.  Well, that'll be the liquor of choice no matter what week it is since that's pretty much all we have taking up space -- various varieties of whiskey, bourbon, or scotch.  

Here in Chicago it was a foggy, rainy, fall weekend last week which was an excellent excuse to sit on the sofa (nurse a hangover from Date Nite), watch movies and putter in the kitchen.  

Not having alerted The Partner to my plan to putter in the pantry, he had already started defrosting some ground chuck and mild Italian sausage.  I decided to take advantage of the Chopped moment and go with chili.  We like our chili with tons of veggies and beans along with the meat despite the fact that some would say this is not true chili.  Oh well.  What's great about using booze in chili -- which I do often, is that it doesn't really matter what kind of chili you make, the liquor gives it an added dimension of flavor that a diner can't always put their finger on.  (Grating a generous portion of fine dark chocolate into it does the same thing, but that's a different post!)  And, I think it's less about the kind of booze you use so much as when you use it during the cooking process.

What To
In the past I've used either beer in the chili -- which isn't so rare -- or tequila -- which isn't as common.  But I don't need to cull either of those ingredients from the bar, so my eye turned to a bottle of Jim Beam that had perhaps a round and a half left in the bottle (about 6 oz).  Given our penchant of late for more top shelf bourbons, I knew this grog would never see a glass.  To the kitchen with it!

How To
If you cook you have your way to make chili, so I'll sidestep the whole recipe part for now and jump to the place where one browns the meat.  These are the first ingredients to hit the heat in my chilis and then remove them.  This leaves behind yummy caramelized bits that add flavor.  Then I throw in the veggies.  As they soften and sweat they also pull up some of the delicious bits from the bottom of the pan.  But they don't pull up all of them.  That's where Jim (or Sam or Jose) comes in.  After the veggies have softened and browned, turn off the flame and move the pan to a cold burner or counter before adding the liquor.  (This is very important.  Otherwise, the video below could happen to you.  The trick is to be as funny during a kitchen fire!)  

Once the bourbon is in the pot, give it a stir, put it back on the heat and bring to a simmer.  Continue to stir until and all the brown bits come off the bottom. This is called deglazing the pan: a fancy French term for a simple process that makes for a lot of delish!  Return the meat to the pot and continue cooking according to your particular chili custom.  

I used about 1/3-1/2 c. of bourbon because that's what I had to finish off the bottle.  I found this to be the perfect amount for flavoring the chili, but add the amount that suits your tastes.

*Note:  This particular recipe was kicked up by adding the juice of one lime before the final simmer.  It gave a fresh brightness to balance the warm oakiness of the Jim Beam.