Riverside Smoked Brisket Chili

Before fall is about turning leaves, pumpkins, high school football or Halloween, it is first about chili. Who doesn’t on that first weekend where the slightest hint of a nip is in the air, say to themselves “I could sure go for a steaming hot bowl of chili and a couple of big gin martinis!”

Synonymous with chili season is the season of getting bombarded by people wanting the recipe for the chili we served at The Riverside. I mean…..bombarded!

This recipe is arduous. It has multiple steps requiring multiple cooking methods – roasting, grilling, smoking, grinding and braising; but that’s why the end result is really good. If you skip the tough parts, then you’re just making chili. They sell chili in cans if you’re really lazy, and it’s not bad; but its not Riverside Chili – the chili that had one of the locals proclaim, (she owned the 2nd hand thrift store in Granby from which Abner Renta outfitted The Riverside) “this is the best chili I’ve ever had in my life. It would be even better with beans…” Her bill for the best chili she’d ever had in her life was $7.67, with tax; she left $8.00, which netted me a whopping thirty-three cent tip. Maybe beans in the chili would have gotten me fifty-cents.

Serves 8-10, or 2 with multiple leftovers

3 dried Ancho chilies (they smell of molasses – can you think of anything better?)
3 dried Guajillo chilies
5-6 dried Arbol chilies
2 tablespoons cumin seeds


1 – 5 - 7# Brisket flat, cut into ¾” cubes
1 pound bacon, diced
½ stick unsalted butter
2 – sweet yellow onions, chopped
2 - red bell peppers, chopped fine
4 – celery stalks, chopped really fine
4 – fat cloves garlic, chopped extremely fine
2 – 14 oz. cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed (optional)
1 – 46 oz. bottle low sodium V8 Juice

Step #1

I’m assuming you have a gas grill. Worst case, you’ve got a charcoal grill; if you have neither, go back to pre-Step -#1 and buy some canned chili.

Heat your grill hot and roast the dried chili peppers. They’ll puff up, and char – that’s what you want; get them to the point where they’re almost smoking, and dark but not burned, on all sides. Take them off the heat, bust the tops off, shake out the seeds, and put them in your blender or food processor, whirling them to a fine powder. You should have the better part of ¾ cup of roasted, ground chili powder.

Step #2

Toast the cumin seeds in a sauté pan over high heat – constantly shaking or stirring. When the aroma starts to permeate the room – don’t burn them or they’ll be bitter, they’re done. Put them in your mortar & pestle and grind them to a fine powder.

Step #3

Pull your meat straight out of the fridge and dice the brisket into ¾” cubes. ½” is too small, 1” is too big - ¾” is perfect. Fire up your smoker, very low heat – anything beyond 200F is too hot. Cherry, apple or pecan wood is the best; hickory or mesquite is a bit bitter, but if that’s all you have, it’ll have to work. You don’t want to cook the meat, just bathe it with the smoke. The colder the meat initially, the more time it has to accept the smoke and not cook.

As soon as you think the meat is starting to cook, pull it out of the smoker and set aside.

Step #4

Dice the bacon and fry until 3/4 crisp in your chili cooking kettle. With a slotted spoon, take out the bacon, leave the bacon fat and add the ½ stick of butter – this isn’t diet chili. Melt the butter then add the onions, bell peppers and celery. Cook 7 minutes, stirring fairly regularly, then add garlic, and cook 3 minutes.

Add the ground chilies and cumin. Stir. If the aroma isn’t making you weep at this point, you need to dump this concoction and go buy some canned chili.

Lower the heat a bit, throw in the bacon and the Brisket, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly, as if you were making risotto. If you’re adding beans, put them in now, stir for 1 minute, then add the V8.

Cook over the lowest heat you can, as long as you can, making sure the chili never boils.
Stir it gently, every so often. It’s all the better if you can cook it low for a couple of hours, cool it down, refrigerate it and warm it back up and eat it the next day. (I’ve never done this, but I can’t imagine why you couldn’t put your covered chili cooker in a 220F oven and leave it be for three-four hours. Slow. Braise.)

Season the chili with a little salt, pepper and Tabasco to taste. Some people add shredded cheese, sour cream, or other fattening accoutrements, but this stuff doesn’t need it.

If The Riverside chili isn’t the best you’ve ever had, no need to leave me a thirty-three cent tip.