Chicken and Turkey Chile

This recipe is for a large chile (feeds 8 to 10 people)

I made this recipe up from scratch so the amounts are not exact...

About 4lbs ground chicken and ground turkey
2 tbs oil (vegetable or bacon grease)
4 med onions diced
2 large orange or yellow bell peppers diced
1 rib of celery - diced very very small
6 cloves of roasted garlic finely diced (if using raw garlic reduce to 4 cloves)
3 diced roasted Anaheim chilies (If you aren't a roasted green chili hoarder like I am you can use green chilies packed in water or diced jalapeno peppers from the can.)
1 can black beans
1 can pinto beans
2 cans diced tomatoes
A cup or two of water or vegetable broth
A few good splashes of sherry (optional)
Smoked salt to taste
2 to 3 tbsp Chili Powder medium blend
(Contains - Chili peppers, cumin, garlic, oregano, coriander, cloves, allspice. I purchase mine at Vitamin cottage but you can get it anywhere. Make sure to get the kind with no added salt or msg/hydrolized soy protein.)

In a saute pan bring 2 tbs of oil to med-high temp and add the diced onion and cook until reduced and slightly browned

 

While the onions are cooking bring your dutch oven or a heavy bottomed pan to high heat and add the chicken and turkey

 

Cook until browned - the browning is very important to the flavor. With this much meat it took almost a half hour to get to the point where I was happy with the brownness

 

 Add the peppers and celery and cook until tender

Add the onion and cook for another 5 to 7 minutes until it looks yummy and combined well

While the meat is cooking drain the black beans and rinse well

(I also rinsed the pinto beans but reserved the water they were packed in, you don't have to rinse them it was just an extra step I didn't need to take)

Dice the green chilies and the garlic

(My cutting board has no feet any more so I have to use a damp paper towel to hold it in place. Do not place your chilies and garlic on a paper towel...)

Add the beans, pinto bean water, chilies, garlic and tomatoes with juice and to the mix

Stir to combine

Add water or broth until you see liquid just barely come to the top of the meat

Add the smoked salt, pepper and chili powder to taste. (Smoked salt is very important to the taste of this dish)

Combine and put in the oven at 275 degrees for 4 hours, stirring every hour - or transfer to slow cooker and cook on low for 5 hours (can cook up to 8 hrs but do not cook less than 3 hrs, or the meat will be too chewy - the secret to succulent meat is the long cooking time at low temps)

If you want to add sherry add about half way through the cooking process

Unfortunately I did not take a picture of the finished product - people came over and I forgot to snap a pic in the excitement.

Enjoy with some cheddar jack cheese and some red or blue corn chips

yum yum yum!!