Categories: Soups and Stews

Ingredients

• Salt
• 1 pound (2 1/2 cups) dried beans, picked over and rinsed
• 2 dried ancho chiles
• 2 dried New Mexican chiles
• 1/2 ounce dried shiitake mushrooms, chopped coarse
• 4 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1/2 cup walnuts, toasted
• 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained with juice reserved
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 - 2 jalapeño chiles, stemmed and coarsely chopped
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 pounds onions, chopped fine
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 7 cups water
• 2/3 cup medium-grind bulgur
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1. Bring 4 quarts water, 3 tablespoons salt, and beans to boil in large Dutch oven over high heat. Remove pot from heat, cover, and let stand for 1 hour. Drain beans and rinse well. Wipe out pot.

2. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees. Arrange anchos and New Mexican chiles on rimmed baking sheet and toast until fragrant and puffed, about 8 minutes. Transfer to plate and let cool, about 5 minutes. Stem and seed anchos and New Mexican chiles. Working in batches, grind toasted chiles, mushrooms, and oregano in spice grinder or with mortar and pestle until finely ground.

3. Process walnuts in food processor until finely ground, about 30 seconds. Transfer to bowl. Process drained tomatoes, tomato paste, jalapeño(s), garlic, and soy sauce in food processor until tomatoes are finely chopped, about 45 seconds, scraping down bowl as needed.

4. Heat oil in now-empty Dutch oven over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add onions and 1 1/4 teaspoons salt; cook, stirring occasionally, until onions begin to brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Lower heat to medium and add ground chile mixture and cumin; cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add rinsed beans and water and bring to boil. Cover pot, transfer to oven, and cook for 45 minutes.

5. Remove pot from oven. Stir in bulgur, ground walnuts, tomato mixture, and reserved tomato juice. Cover pot and return to oven. Cook until beans are fully tender, about 2 hours.

6. Remove pot from oven, stir chili well, and let stand, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Stir in cilantro and serve. (Chili can be made up to 3 days in advance.)

7. TECHNIQUE – GIVE IT A STIR (AND A REST): THICK WITH NO SLICK To capitalize on the ability of the fat in the chili to create body in the sauce, we gave the chili a vigorous stir and a 20-minute rest after we took it out of the oven. Stirring helped to release starch from the beans and the bulgur. The starch then clustered around the fat droplets in the chili, preventing them from coalescing and helping to create a thick, velvety emulsion that never left a slick of oil on top of the chili, no matter how many times we reheated it.

8. TECHNIQUE – MEET THE MEATY ALTERNATIVES: Classic chili relies on meat for texture, savory flavor, and richness. We got all of that in our meatless chili with the help of some surprising add-ins. BULGUR: Small grains of tender, chewy wheat add a hearty textural element. WALNUTS: Ground toasted walnuts add richness and body as well as tons of flavor-boosting glutamates. SHIITAKES: These nucleotide-rich dried mushrooms have a synergistic effect when combined with glutamates, cranking up savory umami flavor even more.

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