The Beef
Originally, I used regular ground beef (about 1 1.5 LBS), and while the chili was good, it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I was looking for that Original Tommy's taste, and after an epiphany one day, I hit it perfect. Burger joints don't have ground beef, they have flash frozen patties. (Some disagree here that Tommy's does this, but for the purpose of replication of taste, they work perfectly.) Now I've been told by some expat Tommy's burger aficionados living in Moscow, that patties are difficult to come by or not available. In this case I'd recommend the fattest ground beef you can find. 70/30 (but no less than 80/20) for example.
The Roux
If this is your first attempt at cloning Tommy's chili, a word of advice is, the roux the flour and oil mix that makes Tommy's unique is easily burnt. This one step can make or break your recipe. You're going to want to cook your beef, and drain the fat. Then measure that fat, and an equal amount of flour to it. (1-1 ratio, though some report their preference for 3-1 - flour-oil) Keeping your beef separate, you now want to cook your roux over medium heat, stirring it till it just starts to turn reddish brown. Then immediately add your beef and all seasonings, reduce the heat to medium low, and cover, continuing the stirring to prevent from burning. (5 10 minutes) Cover, stir, cover, stir, cover. (It's a workout.) The chili is near complete, when you can no longer taste the raw flour in the mix.
It's at this point I think we need to discuss how to construct a proper burger. In this case you need to be thinking double cheese unless you have some medical rubber band around your stomach whereby this recipe is sure to kill you.
Where can I get the wrappers?
bottom bun
beef patty
cheese
beef patty
cheese
Tommy's Original Chili
onion
pickles
mustard
tomato
top bun
Think of the Mustard as a salad dressing. You want it around your vegetables to bring out their taste. The onions should be placed on top of the chili so that the heat can permeate into them and release their oniony goodness. I should also note, on this type of burger the onions should be diced not sliced. On a chili burger, the onion should be white, or yellow.
One last note is pickles. DILL people, DILL If you're one of the troglodytes who adorns their burger art with some other variation of pickle on their burger, then I hope your sexual organs dry up and you go sterile. I remember going into restaurants as a child and occasionally getting a burger that had been randomly assembled with a sweet pickle. Oh, no... no. no. I weep for you who adore these blasphemous pickles.
Refusal to follow my instruction limit your ability to fully enjoy the greatest chili burger ever made. I take no responsibility if you go mucking up perfection because you like a little more here, and a little of this here .
Good luck and God speed.
Originally Submitted
3/31/2012
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