Chicken Chili for a Crowd

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Chicken Chili for a Crowd

Tod Wicks

The First Street Café is an on-site cafeteria at one of my employers. I am pretty fond of chili and was pretty pleased with the Chicken Chili that was served at this cafeteria. I wrote an email to the café manager asking about the recipe. His response is copied below. If you’re going to feed a crowd at a potluck or cocktail party, this is just the thing. Be sure to have plenty of beer and water on hand!

Tod,

Many of the items at First Street Café do not come from a distinct and measured recipe. The chicken chili you are so fond of is just one of those items. However, the following recipe should be a rather close approximation to what was recently served.

2 Tablespoons butter
3 lbs cooked chicken (diced)
1/2 stalk celery (diced)
3 carrots (diced)
3 medium onions (diced)
3 green peppers (diced)
3 red peppers (diced)
2 bay leaves
3 tablespoons cumin seed
3 tablespoons coriander seed
3 tablespoons ground chocolate
1 bunch cilantro (chopped)
5 cups canned diced tomato
1.5 gals chicken broth
5 cups cooked black beans (canned is fine)
Salt, Pepper and Tabasco to taste

Melt the butter in a large soup pot. Sauté the next six items until just soft. Add chicken broth, tomato, and cilantro. Bring to a boil.
While this is cooking, preheat an oven to 350 degrees. Toast the cumin and coriander in the oven until you start to smell them. At this point put the seed in a coffee grinder or food processor with the two bay leaves. Grind until a fine powder forms.
Add this powder and the chocolate to the chili. When the chili has reduced a bit, add the black beans and cook until the chili thickens.
Now, add salt, pepper and Tabasco to your own personal taste. First Street did not use very much Tabasco.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Steve Z
Chef /Manager
First Street Café

About

Tod Wicks

A home computer aficionado [a relative rarity in 1982] with a license plate that says APPL II, our own Tod Wicks is also the originator of the Ian Faber Memorial Rallye. [for information about rallyes, check out our Special Rallye Issue.]

City Names Update 2006

Ah, how times do change, as does the familiar ring of old names of cities returning after the massive changes in Eastern Europe in the late 80s and early 90s. Chemnitz is once again Chemnitz. St. Petersburg is proudly back again.

And as noted to the left, some cities simply disappear off the map when other, larger, cities devour them. This is true here in the SF Bay Area where behemouth San Jose is concerned. Always in the shadow of San Francisco, San Jose keeps trying to gain stature among the top metropolitan areas of the world, but no matter hard this former canning center tries, it will never ever match San Francisco for style, fashion, culture, business, architecture, and pure elan. That's not for trying, though, as San Jose has for years been gobbling up small nearby communities and adding them to "greater" San Jose: Such places as Willow Glen, Robertsville, Almaden, Alviso, Coyote, Milpitas, oops, sorry, no one wants Milpitas. San Jose has its eyes on San Martin and Cupertino these days. Too bad, San Jose, you'll always by that little burg at the sourthern end of San Francisco Bay. As a sign over a toilet in a business on Powell Street once urged: Flush twice as San Jose needs the water.