Ben’s Chili Bowl Half-Smokes with Chili Sauce
Ingredients
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
3 tablespoons dehydrated onion
2 teaspoons beef bouillon powder
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon red curry powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
3 tablespoons masa harina
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon tomato paste
3 cups water, divided
1 pound ground beef (80/20)
sea salt to taste
6 mild half-smokes
6 white hot dog buns
French’s yellow mustard
1 small onion, chopped
Directions
- Mix the first 10 ingredients together in a bowl. Whisk in 1 cup water, making sure all the spices are evenly distributed and there are no lumps.
- Put the ground beef in a pot with remaining 2 cups water. Stir the beef and water to break up the beef into very fine bits. You don’t want any ground beef chunks. Bring to a boil.
- Add the spice mixture, bay leaf and tomato paste, stir to combine well. Turn down the heat to low and simmer uncovered for 60-70 minutes or until chili sauce is still loose, but not liquidy with unabsorbed water. Adjust salt to taste, keeping in mind that the half-smokes are pretty salty on their own. I didn’t add any additional salt.
- With about 15 minutes left in the cooking time, put your half-smokes on the grill. I don’t have a grill so I do what I usually do with sausage, which is to put the half-smokes in a frying pan on the stove with about 1/4 inch of water in it over medium-high heat. Cover and allow to steam for 5 minutes. Remove cover for remaining 10 minutes, allowing the water to boil off and the sausage to brown, turning once. They should be black on two sides when ready to serve.
- Place a hot dog bun on plate. Add one sausage, about a tablespoon of chopped onion, a drizzle of plain yellow mustard and about half a cup of chili sauce. It will be very messy. Serve with ridged potato chips for scooping up extra chili sauce that falls out.
Notes
- recipe adapted from Tom’s Test Kitchen