I’m gearing up for a large graduation party and am trying to figure out what to fix. I’m also trying to clear out my fridge and freezer so as to make room for party food. By my current guess, we’ve at least 50 coming for an open house/barbecue. I’m thinking hot dogs, burgers, and maybe ribs (cook those first as they take a few hours). I was browsing through the book Desperation Entertaining!
These were very good and I think a nice option to add for a cookout when you’re doing burgers and dogs. They suggested that Southerners preferred their chili finely ground. To get this texture, they suggested cooling the mixture 20 minutes or so and then using your blenders or food processor. I just pulled out my immersion blender (love that thing!) and it did the trick just perfectly! I used a pound of ground beef rather than their 1.5 pounds because that’s what I had. And I upped the Worcestershire from 2 tsp to 1 Tbs because (a) I’d just used the tablespoon and b) we like Worcestershire.
Carolina Chile Dogs
Ingredients
Carolina Chili
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 2 cups water
- 1 6oz can of tomato paste
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1 Tbs chili powder
- 1 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp vinegar (cider or white)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
- hot dogs and buns
- grated cheese
Instructions
- Put the water and ground beef in a Dutch oven or soup pot over high heat and bring to a boil. Peel and chop the onion while waiting for this to boil. Add the onion, reduce the heat to medium, and stir to break up the meat a bit.
- Add the tomato paste, ketchup, chili powder, Worcestershire, vinegar, salt and pepper and stir until the tomato paste is dissolved and everything is mixed well, breaking up the meat chunks as you go.
- Simmer over low heat about 15 minutes, until very thick, stirring now and then.
- Serve on hot dogs with grated Cheddar cheese if you want chili cheese dogs. They didn’t suggest that so maybe it’s not a Carolina thing, but around here you get chili cheese dogs if you get chili on hot dogs. 😉
NOTE: If you like boiling ground beef, I’d think you could reduce the water a bit and skip the blending because the ground beef will already be fairly fine.
You can definitely make the chili ahead of time and freeze in portions that your family will find useful. They suggest 2 Tbs per hot dog, so maybe 1/2 cup for a family of 4-5.
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