Cocoa Coffee Turkey Chili

Turkey "Chili"

As we talked about last week, having your food plans laid out before gathering is invaluable for a game that occurs around a mealtime.  It prevents the meal from stopping your momentum and keeps everyone engaged at the table.  Generally I try to make food that is relevant to the game that I’m running like something that would be served to the characters. Sometimes, though, you just need something that is filling, delicious and doesn’t take too much  time to prepare on game day.  For such a situation my go-to is soups and chilies, since most of the time you can prepare them the night before and just heat them up when people are ready to eat.  

One of my favorite chili recipes originally came to me from Turntable Kitchen, a great blog about food and music.  This is a modified version that I make for my family at least once a month that always turns out great.  We don't really love chili peppers so we replaced them and made some other small changes.

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

1 Large (softball sized) Red Onion, rough chopped*

1 Large Yellow Onion, rough chopped*

4 Cloves of Garlic (approximately the size of a segment of your pinky finger), minced

2lbs Lean Ground Turkey

2 28oz Cans of Diced Tomatoes

2 15oz Cans of Black Beans (drained)

1 Teaspoon Chipotle Chili Powder

1 Tablespoon Ground Cumin

1 Tablespoon Sugar

2 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder

1 Cinnamon Stick

1 Cup Dark Coffee, fresh brewed

Optional: 1 Tablespoon Epazote.  This will help to enhance the flavors of the black beans, but can be hard to get your hands on if you don’t have a Mexican market nearby, I generally omit it.

*when I say rough chopped I mean the pieces should be between ¼ and ½ inch to a side, or about the size of the face of a 4 sided die

First heat your oil and cinnamon on medium high in a Dutch oven or large pot, to check to see if the oil is hot enough flick a little water from your fingertips in there and if it starts popping you’re good to go.  Throw in the Red and Yellow Onion and the Garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until the Yellow Onion is translucent.  This should take about 7 to 10 minutes.

Next add the turkey, breaking it up in the pot with a wooden spoon and stirring frequently until the turkey is browned.  How long this takes will depend largely on how good you are about keeping the pink turkey in contact with the bottom of the pot, but be patient.  This is a stage you don’t want to rush, but shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes or so.

Once the turkey is browned pour all of the other ingredients into the pot.  Give it a few good stirs to get everything mixed and then turn the heat to high.  Keep it on high, stirring it every minute or so until you get a light boil. 

Reduce the heat to low and allow the chili to simmer, uncovered, for about a half hour.  You’ll want to look in on it a few times during this period just so you can scrape any residue on the side of your pot back down.  If you want to make the chili spicier you’ll want to taste it now and add more chipotle powder as needed.  Either way, you’ll want to keep it going for another half hour and then you’ve got yourself a delicious pot of chili.  Dependent on appetites this recipe should feed 5 – 10 people.   I’m still playing around with this recipe, and I’m going to try some vegetarian variants. If I have any success with those I’ll let you know.

Later this week I’ll share a recipe for a simple corn bread that you can serve with this, and some thoughts on how the skills of cooking and game mastering overlap.  See you then.