Recreating Cincinnati Chili From Taste

Hi, I'm Ines, I'm in the BA test kitchen,

and today we're having a super secret conversation

about Chris Morocco.

Once again, we're putting Chris's

supertaster abilities to the test.

This is Cincinnati chili,

made popular by Skyline Diner in Cincinnati.

I'm challenging Chris to recreate this dish

using all the same ingredients in just one day.

He'll be able to taste it, touch it, smell it,

but at no point will he be able to see this dish.

At the end of the day, we're gonna come back

to see his final creation and I'll be the judge.

[tense music]

[tiger growling]

Gah.

Seemingly very stewy, meaty, maybe a bean,

but then there was also this kind of sharp dairy note.

Oh, I don't think we've ever had an ovaloid plate before.

Whatever it is, there's a lot of it.

On a melty cheese, but maybe it's just kind of

heat from whatever's underneath it, melting it slightly.

Got a bean, it's a very creamy bean, maybe a kidney bean.

I'd say initial thought is

we're somewhere around like southwest America, Mexico.

So I've got onion, I've got bean, more bean.

I dunno if it was a different type of bean.

More cheese.

I feel like we could do this all day,

is there like other things here?

Oh.

Oh dear.

Oh deary me.

I just got a strand of spaghetti.

[Chris chuckles]

I feel like could it be Cincinnati style chili

where they like serve it on spaghetti,

isn't the name of the place like Skyline or something?

So I went to college in Ohio and we would hear about,

you know, those heathens down in Cincinnati

who'd put chili on their spaghetti.

Now I'm getting like an undercurrent of warm spice,

almost like a clove.

[Crew] Gonna put something next to you.

There you go. This.

so we've got a small cracker, seemingly four sides to it

that tastes like an oyster cracker.

I don't know what to do with that with regards to this.

I'm just trying to see if there's something else

kind of like going on.

I'm not getting big obvious pieces of tomato,

although I would imagine that there is tomato in this.

I'm just wondering if I finally got some meat.

I'll call that for ground beef.

And I do think we need something

in that sort of chili powder space.

[Crew] How would you feel about

taking like a nice big bite?

With a fork? With a fork.

Here we go.

Fan request, just eat the damn thing like a normal person.

One thing that is interesting

in just sort of tasting it all together,

is there is a sweetness to this.

I don't know if it's overt sugar

that's being added necessarily,

but that was a good idea, thank you.

The cracker as like the topping

that's gonna compliment this in any way,

like that is shocking to me.

This is a strange little beast here.

I don't know.

Ooh.

Oh, oh.

Is this a Bengal tiger?

I'm onto you, I'm onto all you.

So we know we need spaghetti.

we know we need four faceted oyster style crackers.

I don't want anybody screwing me

on the fine print on this, okay,

just get me whatever they've got

like in the oyster cracker aisle, okay?

Ground beef.

If you're making chili you gotta have

at least two types of bean in there.

So I'm gonna say like kidney beans,

pinto beans, black beans.

Yellow or white onions?

Already we're making some hard choices here.

I'm gonna say white garlic,

canned tomato puree, cumin, clove.

I'm gonna say cinnamon, coriander, oregano.

Why don't we just get some good old chili powder.

Monterey jack style cheese.

Do you use wine in your chili, beer in your chili?

Put booze in chili?

Lager style beer.

Something about beer and spaghetti

I just find very upsetting.

Woof.

All right, cool, somebody's gonna go

shop for these ingredients

and then I'll have my first shot at the dish.

Let's assume that worked out better than it did.

[tense music]

Like, right off the bat.

Like, did I miscount?

Was I not clear on the list?

What is happening here?

Like, surely even with your eyes closed

you can tell if something has four sides or six.

This is six sided, the original was four.

No?

Like, am I losing my mind?

Okay, well here are my ingredients.

I'm going to go grab some equipment.

I've got water boiling for spaghetti

and then we gotta have

a very frank conversation about spices.

I'm not a purist when it comes to chili.

Some people think you shouldn't put beans in chili at all,

it should just be all meat.

I don't think I got the sense

that there was rehydrated chili product in this chili.

I feel like I'm reading cinnamon and clove together.

I don't think I even really paused for a minute to consider

the presence of a chili product in here at all,

other than in the form of something like this chili powder.

So I'm starting with the aromatic base of the chili.

So this is our white onion,

I'm going to use some of the onion as well as garlic

in the base of the chili itself.

I'm saving some onion to the side to use in our raw garnish.

I don't know that I could promise you I tasted garlic.

I'm kind of assuming that it's there

making up part of the savory base of this dish.

Does cinnamon and chili seem weird to you?

Just like, that could never be a thing.

[Crew] I think it's an interesting choice.

So we're at the stove, I'm gonna start my chili.

Going with some neutral oil.

I feel like it's a pretty safe bet

to just start by browning off the meat and breaking it up.

I did feel like the meat felt pretty tender

and not super bouncy,

so I just wanna make sure we're able to capture

that same sensation of kind of tenderness.

Ground beef feels like the most common meat to use in chili.

It's hitting this with a little bit of salt.

I need to kind of start to break it up,

otherwise it's just gonna be a total beast

to try to break up later on.

So in goes our aromatics.

Just wanna cook these two things out.

And not too early to think about our spices here.

I think we're gonna wanna bloom those in this hot fat

before we put in any liquid products.

The aromatic spice that I think I found here is cumin.

I don't know that I'm doing coriander.

I don't know that that feels entirely appropriate here.

Oregano is a kind of constituent part

of a lot of chili powders.

Quarter teaspoon of clove, probably already too much.

Clove is is wild stuff I'm gonna do some paprika.

just the tiniest bit of ground cinnamon.

Yippee-ki-yay, right?

And then I'm doing about a tablespoon

of just good old chili powder.

I'm gonna do beer first, then tomato.

Tall boy of Narragansett.

Which is gonna add.

What the hell is beer adding?

Help me out here.

I wanna reduce that down

and then we're gonna hit it with our tomato

and cook that out.

But for the minute we're gonna use some water.

Could use broth, something to think about for next time.

I'm gonna add my beans in now.

Using Pinto with black and I'm using kidney.

I'm gonna let this simmer for maybe half an hour.

I do wanna concentrate it back down a little bit,

but we're gonna kind of set it and forget it here.

All right, so I don't need tons of spaghetti.

How much spaghetti is enough spaghetti?

Let's check in on flavor here.

The chili is good.

The clove is just peeking up above the rim,

you know, of the pot there.

Here's an interesting question.

It feels wrong to put butter on the spaghetti,

but it also feels wrong not to put butter on the spaghetti.

I mean, are you literally just scooping

plain ass spaghetti onto your bowl

and then putting chili on it and like that's it?

Just thinking about that now,

it's just like very upsetting to me to consider

like a totally nude spaghetti sitting on a plate,

receiving, you know, chili.

I just...

[Crew] Do you wanna protect history?

It's like one of those like, am I willing to be wrong

just for the sake of doing what feels right to me?

I'm bringing this out at al dente.

And I just wanna like toss the butter through it.

I don't want excess liquid and water on the plate.

Just the butter on the spaghetti, ugh, it's so good.

So here we is, here we is. Here we is.

Perfect, doing great, yeah.

So I'm going to plate this up here.

I think the method is you put the spaghetti on the plate

and then put the chili on the spaghetti.

Cheese is going on and diced onion to finish.

Serve with oyster crackers and enjoy.

Here's my first attempt at the dish.

[Kevin] What do you think about this visually?

Is that appealing?

What do you want?

What do you want from me, Kevin?

It's what I tasted.

I'm gonna give this a little whirl here.

I feel like I could have just put more chili on it.

Visually I just felt like, oh,

you probably wanna see a little bit of spaghetti on there,

but actually you just wanna like kill this thing with chili.

All right, I'm gonna give myself some scores.

First is ingredients.

I'm gonna give myself 70.

I feel like there could be so many other things,

so many fewer things.

Technique, however,

I'd love to think that I've got an 80 here.

Maybe appearance I'm feeling best about at an 85.

With regards to taste, I think, you know,

I'm being held back a little bit by the fact that

I just needed more chili on this dish.

I would love to think I'm at an 85 here, 90 even.

I feel like I'm in reasonably good shape.

Maybe that's misplaced confidence but.

All right, actual scores.

Ooh.

Actual on ingredients is 71,

technique, 87, appearance, 90, taste, 70.

I just gave myself an average of an 81

but actually I'm at 80.

Clearly ingredients are where I'm weakest

and that is where I really need to be laser focused

in the next tasting.

[tense music]

[tiger growling]

Second tasting, as ever, it all comes down to this.

Oh, well the cloche is on it so that clears that up.

I thought it was off.

Just the sensation of weight.

This has gotta be like five pounds of food.

Is there really not an herb on this?

Got a big bean, it's gotta be a kidney bean.

Big onion.

Is it possible there's just literally

one type of bean in this?

That feels like a smaller bean though, right?

What do we think about butter?

This to me is tasting more like a mildly sharp cheddar.

There's also a like a lot of it like everywhere.

Still get that [bleep] clove though.

Clove kind of backing onto cinnamon.

It's almost got this like Guerra masala to it.

I'm just not getting like 30 points worth of difference

when it comes to the ingredients here.

Like, not even like the beer feels right.

Take the butter out, maybe I'll add coriander back in.

There's no heat, like none.

Like we can just throw some sugar in there.

Chili feels very broken down.

Like these little bits of meat are so fine.

[Crew] I also put a small dish to your right.

Oh geez, God.

[Crew] Count the sides.

One, two, three, four, five, six, I just miscounted.

It's cool, we're good, we're good.

All right, everything's all right.

Over here I'm gonna do V2.

I might take out the chili powder and just go with paprika.

Do we want white or orange cheddar?

Anybody have a coin?

I'm gonna say heads is white, tails is orange.

Heads is white.

The system works.

Second round of ingredients,

most of the familiar cast, right?

A slightly more concise group of spices.

Two types of beans, just all in on kidney and pinto.

We're gonna start much the way we did before,

keeping the onion and the garlic the same.

My technique score was good, right?

At this point I don't think there's like a call

for changing something dramatic in that space.

Starting by browning the meat.

Version two, sticking with white onion, garlic, salt.

While that's going, I'm just gonna grab a little bowl

and make my spice blend.

Doing about twice the amount of cumin that I had before.

Introducing coriander.

Then paprika.

Clove is in.

Tiniest bit of cinnamon, talking like quarter teaspoon.

Doing a good bit more black pepper.

All right, so that's all the spices going in.

No beer this time.

I'm gonna go right from here to tomato.

Here is where I wanna be even a little bit more diligent

in terms of breaking that meat up

before the beans are in there.

I'm using a potato masher.

I guess I might as well add like a,

I mean, I don't know how much sugar

but like a little bit of sugar.

I'm using white sugar because frankly,

in such a small quantity, I don't think you'd pick up

any nuance from like honey, maple syrup.

Definitely getting more of those spices up front.

I think we're ready to go with our chicken broth here.

Frankly, adding chicken broth had as much to do

with like my actual score for ingredients

as it did with like anything having to do with flavor.

I'm gonna throw the beans in now.

Pinto beans and kidney beans only.

And I'm gonna let this go about a half hour

before we drop our pasta, see how it goes.

I think it's like pretty good.

I think the spicing is more assertive.

I don't feel bad about it.

Might throw a pinch more sugar, pinch more salts.

Let's focus on spaghetti.

No butter this time, so don't get excited.

Chili's basically ready.

I'm gonna go shred some cheese and dice some onions

so we're ready to go when the pasta's done.

All right, we're gonna plate it up.

Nude spaghetti right on the platter.

I'm gonna really do a lot.

Like we need to get to like four or five pounds here.

Laying our mild shredded cheddar all over this bad boy.

And then finally a sprinkle of diced raw onion.

Still seems a little wrong but in a different way.

The color of the cheddar is like

a little bit too similar tonally to the spaghetti.

Should have maybe gone with the yellow cheddar.

Final attempt, four pound mountain of chili on spaghetti.

With oyster crackers.

Please just tell me what this is.

I'm gonna give myself some scores.

First up is ingredients.

I would love to think that we've made progress.

Maybe I'll go up to an 80.

So for technique, I would love to think I am at 87 still.

Appearance I'm still at 90.

Taste we'll find out in a minute.

It's time for our judge to come in

and give you my real scores

and figure out what's going on with this dish.

Hi. Hi, Ines.

How are you doing? Good.

Do you have some like special connection to this?

Is this like something you know about or is this just like?

This is something I know about.

I think that we both have

a pretty good idea about it though.

Do we? Yeah.

I present to you a classic rendition of Cincinnati chili.

Cincinnati chili.

Wait, the beans are separate from the chili?

The beans are just a topping.

I really do appreciate just like how close you were.

I think even with your beef,

I saw you trying to macerate it to the right consistency.

The biggest difference there was

this style you would boil the beef-

[Chris] And then mash after.

There's no mashing necessary, it boils in the water.

And where did your mind go with the flavors with this?

Cumin, clove, black pepper.

The only one that you were really missing

was that allspice, which you can see also like contributes

to that sort of like darker color.

[Chris] Is there clove in there though?

[Ines] There is clove.

But it's the allspice in the clove but no cinnamon?

There is also cinnamon.

[Crew] There's no cumin or coriander.

Stop it.

Stop it right now, I refuse to accept it.

I tasted sweet chili, so you know what I did?

I put sugar in it.

There's dark brown sugar in it.

There's even the addition of just unsweetened cocoa powder.

Cocoa powder.

[Ines] So I think that going back to that-

Well like the color is so deep.

So deep, and then of course we have,

you know I'm gonna rep the Midwest till I die,

We have that very Midwest moment with the cheese on top.

I could have easily have ended up with yellow cheddar,

just to be totally clear.

'Cause Odin's defective coin determined

the ultimate color of the cheddar here.

So like, that's what happened.

So in very true Cincinnati Skyline Chili style,

this would be considered a five-way.

We're gonna take one of our crackers.

But why oyster crackers?

I have no idea. Okay.

I'm gonna be real with you,

There's a little hole that I've made

and I'm gonna add a little bit of hot sauce

and use them to sort of like eat my chili.

That's like molecular gastronomy Cincinnati style.

Would you like to try one? Yeah.

This recipe was made for tasting table.

This is sort of a classic rendition

of the Skyline Chili inspired by them,

they safeguard their recipe with their life.

So we're not getting it, no one's getting it.

Oh, I see, so this is like sort of like an ode to it.

Now with the Cincinnati chili,

please do not be fooled just 'cause you see pasta

that you're gonna get your twirl on.

You're actually going to cut your pasta.

Not cute, but delicious.

[Chris chuckles]

Not Cute But Delicious.

A new show coming to you from Bon Appetit.

I love like the smoothness

and like the tightness of that sauce.

Let's go ahead and taste yours.

That's some good chili.

I don't have anywhere near the same

quantity of warm spice.

Like I'm definitely getting

just the goodness from the cumin and your coriander there

but it's just a very different type of earth.

Yeah. So let's talk scores.

Cool.

For ingredients, you gave yourself an 80,

and I also gave you an 80.

I think even things down to you chose a white onion,

this version has a yellow onion.

And then for technique, you gave yourself an 87.

I gave you a 90.

I didn't think you were that far off,

so for appearance, you gave yourself a 90.

I don't think that that's really fair to yourself.

I gave you a 95. What?

Visually, I think outside of the color of the cheese,

and I think you got the gist of it,

I think even right off the bat

you kind of knew what this was.

In the cold light of day I think when it comes to taste,

final score I'd give myself is like 75, maybe even just 70.

I gave you an 82.

There was that of course the differences between the spices,

but I think that the lesson of the day

is that you're on the right track with it.

So overall, your numbers are coming up to an 82.

Against mine, I would give you an 87 overall for today.

Not bad. No that's not bad at all.

Yeah, I think you need to think better about yourself.

I think that this was a good stab.

Thank you, honestly, it's funny to have

an idea in mind of what something is,

but having no knowledge of it

beyond the fact that it exists and it's out there.

Now you know. Yeah, Now I know.

Listen, I think IneS was being generous

and I appreciate that.

I feel like I was close,

but there was still a long way to go.

Skyline is the name associated

with Cincinnati style chili, right?

I was aware of the idea of it.

The specifics of it are what just blows my mind.

It's really fascinating how specific a take on chili it is.

It's a lot more care and consideration going into it

and I think that's great.