The Gower Chili Cook-Off - 2017 - A Retrospective

A few weeks it was the annual Gower Chilli Festival, which of course meant it was the annual Gower Chilli Cook-Off!

Having entered last year for the first time, and come a not-too-shabby 9th out of 12 (not too bad, considering I went in with very little clue as to what I was doing, or what the standard was, so was expecting, but not hoping for, last place), I was looking for an improvement on last years placing - in my head aiming for a move up the rankings to around 5th place.

Lessons learnt (or not) from last year

In my retrospect last year, I noted that a more regular competitor (and professional chef) told me that "mince always wins", so I was going in with the plan to switch to mince, but a last minute (well, the week before) change of heart saw me going once again for my favourite part of the cow - ribs!  As it happens, I think the top three or four competitors were actually not using mince this year, so maybe the old mince bias is not a thing, or maybe it just wasn't mince's year.  I don't think we found anyone else using short-ribs, brisket seemed a popular choice and I think another competitor was using shin, another using goat and another using pork belly.

Despite not switching to mince, as I had said I would in the retrospective last year, I did focus on really making the flavour work over the four hours. And boy was that stressful! When all the ingredients hit the pan at about the one hour mark, so with three hours to reduce, it was pretty runny, so I spent a large part of the next 2 1/2 hours stirring, pacing and fretting about whether it was actually going to reduce like it was supposed to. But it did, it just left it until the final 30 minutes to really thicken up!

Unfortunately, whilst we planned to take heed of the lesson learnt that food prep could start before the official kick off, we failed. Actually worse than last time - last time around we were there and tent setup for the starting gun, but without most of the ingredients, this time we didn't even arrive on site until starting time and whilst the other competitors were starting to cook we were trying to setup table, cooker and gazebo!

Things to improve

I was happy with the consistency and the savoury element of the chilli, and the judges seemed to like that balance - but as my dad pointed out, it lacked a salt and sweetness - it was very meaty, just didn't have the all round brightness.  I did forget to add the sugar at the end, and also forgot to add the lime - which might have brightened it a little and made it a little better balanced.  One idea that I have had since is to add tomato ketchup: being packed with both sugar and salt and has quite a sharp taste, if I can work out a subtle enough quantity it might add the missing something.

I also used bacon bits this year, which overall I was happy with, but bacon doesn't really seem right for slow cooking - admittedly, they work fine in a slow braise, and kind of melt away, but I'm going to try switching to pig cheek for the next experiment. As well as being cheaper, it should also provide a closer texture and appearance to the beef.

I will also try to experiment with a different blend of chillies, to see how I can work the flavour a little more.

The results

I came 3rd!

So, a better improvement than I hoped for and meant I took home the bronze cash prize which just about covered the cost of the food! A further nice side-effect of the placing was because the Silver medal winner had already qualified for the UK finals (he is a chilli cook-off circuit pro and had already qualified in another regional cook-off) I took his place, which means 23rd September, I will be competing in the UK finals, which should be fun!

It was a genuine surprise, there were only 9 competitors, and all looked very serious, so on arrival I started revising my targeted place to maybe 6th out of the 9. Whilst tasting the other competitors chillis, we started to be optimistic that "we wouldn't be last place" (a genuine phrase that was said out loud several times in our tent during the final stage - which shows the level of expectation on the team!).  Our confidence was somewhat boosted by the People's Choice voting (during tasting, people can taste and vote for their favourite before winners announced) as we seemed to be getting at least a reasonable number of votes (last year I had one vote, which was by us), but was still in genuine shock when the results were announced!


As per last year, here are the feedback cards (one of the official UK Chilli Cook-off Association judges explained that two of the judges on the panel judged all events, whilst the other two were locals - which I assume was his attempt to explain the two extreme outliers in the scoring)

The Gower Chili Cook-Off - 2016 - A Retrospective

Last weekend was the weekend that I have been building up to for a few months. It was the Gower Chili Cook-off and the Gower BBQ competition weekend, and I had signed up for both competitions.

The chili cook off was due to take place 12:00 - 16:00 on the Saturday and then the BBQ competition was taking place from Midnight Saturday until 14:30 Sunday afternoon. Despite it raining most of Sunday, and being a fairly miserable day to be sitting on my own in a field in the early hours of a Sunday morning, it was a great weekend. Something that I would whole-heartedly recommend anyone to try (well, the BBQ competition does require the equipment to smoke - or at least low'n'slow cook - some bigger pieces of meat, although that is perfectly possible on a decent kettle bbq).


So lets start at the beginning. The chili cook off.

I had been iterating on my recipe for a couple of months, adjusting each iteration based on feedback and tasting - the outcome of which can be seen here (yes, I did have a spreadsheet for my cooking), any but the version 1 of the chili will make a decent chili, and those quantities will actually produce enough for 3-4 people with rice.  Going into the competition there were still a lot of unknowns, primarily: 1) practice runs had all been in the house using an oven; 2) I had not attempted scaling up to 1 gallon, so was unsure how that would cook/reduce with the increased volumes; 3) I had further adjustments to the final recipe that had not yet been tested.

Anyway, all fears aside I am happy with how it turned out - I knew on submission that it was too runny: I had been a little over-zealous adding additional stock early on, and the smoker just didn't run hot enough to effectively reduce that volume of liquid. But consistency aside, I was pretty happy with the submission in the 4 hours.


Unfortunately, the judges weren't quite as happy (more on that later).  I came 9th out of 12 - which given it was my first run, and all the other chilis I tasted were really good (and a lot of the other competitors had won regional cook-offs in Gower or elsewhere), I was bracing myself for last place.


But despite the less than glowing feedback from the judges, and the fact that we didn't win any of the public vote, I am still sharing it here because: 1) I think it tasted pretty decent; 2)  whilst not getting any of the votes for the "People's Choice" award, several people returned to compliment the chili and to find out more about how it was cooked and how we achieved the taste.

The whats and whys

Rather than writing out the recipe (as that is already written out in the spreadsheet) I thought I would write down the key ingredients and the reasoning behind each one:

1. Short beef ribs - these are one of the most intensely beef-y cut of the cow. Incredibly deep flavour, a lot of connective tissue and usefully, very cheap! I used them to add a rich meaty flavour to the chili. The ribs need a long time cooking, so it was important (as I discovered first iteration of the chili) that after the first hour on the smoker, it by cut quite small to make sure if was sufficiently cooked in the liquid. Given the volume of liquid being cooked, and the temperature of the smoker, the meat wasn't as soft and melt-in-the-mouth as it could have been.
   
   
   
2. The chilis - dried Ancho, dried Cascabel, Chipotles and Jalapenos. The Ancho and Cascabel were almost entirely because of availability - but they provide a fruity and nutty flavour - being dried, much like raisins or sun-dried tomatoes, they have a concentrated and more intense flavour. The chipotle was a must have on account of the smokey direction of the chilli (chipotles are smoked jalapenos). The Jalapenos were fresh and were to provide the heat, plus a fresher pepper taste.
   
   
3. The savory base - Given the time constraints to practice the chili, I opted to keep it relatively simple with the flavour base of my chili, and went with the classic oregano, garlic, onion, chili, cumin and coriander mix. I will start to turn this up a notch in preparation for next year, as this is what will really come into its own and shine on being reduced for 4 hours.
   
   
4. Umami - an important part as well, in providing a deep, complex savory flavour and boosting the beefy-ness of the ribs - Standard options here including tomato puree, Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce (although Waitrose has started selling jars of Umami..)

What I learnt

1. I went into the competition that using proper cuts of beef (rather than ground mince) and smoking the meat before adding to the chili would be a competitive advantage. This was not the case - the judges seemed to not be keen on the smoked element, and as I was later told by an experienced competitor:
   
   "mince always wins"
   
   
   
2. The biggest insight into competition chili was tasting the other competitors chili, they were not what I was expecting. They were a lot richer, deeper - in my opinion, sweeter - than I would expect for a chili. In many ways it reminded me of a rich bolognese sauce (obviously with chili ingredients instead, but the way the flavour is boosted by slowly reducing to a thick, intense sauce).  Next time I enter, I will go with mince, and focus on reducing to that thick, intense sauce over the 4 hours.
   
   
3. A further observation I made, in the same vein as above, was that a lot of competitors included pork (pancetta, pork belly, etc) - which is a common approach in bolognese sauce to add flavour and gloss (and gelatin!).
   
   
4. You can start chopping vegetables before the start time! We did discover this before the start time, but unfortunately our organisation was a little shambolic, so our ingredients didn't even turn up until just before the start time!

What the judges said

If you are interested (in the format or content) of what the judges had to say about the submission, here are the feedback forms. Not an awful lot to work with (particularly the "Taste: Odd" comment or the comments about the burnt aroma/taste - which is strange as I can confirm that none of the ingredients were even close to being burnt.. not even charred at the edges, or the fact that more than once the judges made diametrically opposing statements)

As I said, the real insight was tasting the other chillis.