Chicken-Chorizo Chili; or Ch(icken|orizo|ili)

This is an award winning chili recipe!

By "award winning", I mean I beat four other recipes in a workplace chili competition. Gordon Ramsay, I am not.

As always: measure with your heart and substitute whatever sounds good. It's your life!

Ingredients

• Chicken Thighs
• Pack of Chorizo
• Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce
• Tabasco Sauce
• Tomato Sauce
• Black Beans
• Small Red Beans
• Frozen Corn
• White Vinegar
• Spices
  • Cumin
  • Onion Powder
  • Garlic Powder
  • Cayenne Powder
  • Monosodium Glutamate (aka MSG BABY)
    • No, this is not bad for you

Cooking instructions

• Mise en Place
• Start by cooking the meat. Sear both the chicken and chorizo on different pans for faster cooking. I prefer to cook my chorizo longer so it gets crispy and more flavor renders out.
• While those are cooking, mix some other ingredients together in a pot (make sure to leave room for the meat and grease later!)
  • I blended the chipotle peppers with some water and their sauce so that the final chili "sauce" would end up smoother.
  • With the blended chipotle peppers, add the tomato sauce and tabasco to the pot.
  • Add all the spices to the pot in quantities that sound good to you.
  • Drain and wash both bean types, add half(-ish) of each can to the pot.
• At this point (and if you're slow like me) you should be looking good on the meat done-ness. If not, have a little patience until it's done to your liking.
• The chorizo should be good to go, but you'll need to shred the chicken thighs. I use the paddle attachment on my stand mixer to help with it, otherwise it takes quite a while.
• Add the shredded chicken, chorizo, and fat + grease from the pans into the pot.
• Add the frozen corn
• Get the pot on a medium-ish heat.
• Add water to make it more watery than you would like normally, it will simmer away before all is said and done.
• I had it simmering for probably an hour-ish. It was enough time to where the chicken, beans, or both emulsified in the sauce mixture making it thicker, which I like.
• I forgot to taste until I had reached this point, I thought it needed something to "lift" the flavors a little so here is where I added a little acid (White Vinegar). I had thought it would need some sugar to help with the sweetness, but it was surprisingly sweet already, probably due to the corn. I definitely didn't add any extra salt as that was already handled by the MSG and chorizo.
• At this point, you're pretty much done and ready to serve.
• Shred some cheese on top, get a spoon of Sour Cream and call it a day!

If you try this recipe out, reach out to me and let me know what you think! Did you enjoy it? Did it hold you hostage on the john for hours? I hope not, but that would also honestly be kinda hilarious. Better to laugh about these things after-the-fact.