Originally Posted by
TMOliver
"Cheap beef" is usually fatty, although when using the beef from fresh-killed un-fattened "Corrientes" (range cattle), a large dollop of kidney fat comes in handy for browning.
Tomato sauce? I've seen growed men judging chili-cookoffs fall on the ground, seized by fits, chewing thorny brushado, and frothing at the mouth, having discovered that some novillero has throwed tomato sauce or paste in the chili. Next you'll be wanting to throw a handful of mesquite beans and a teacup of buffler gall.
The only excuses for tomatoes occurs when cooking chili in the morning and needing a Bloody Mary or for mixing Sangrita (Orange Juice, Tomato Juice, Lime Juice, Salt, Chile Pequin) to chase good Tequila or bad Mescal.
All the flavor of beef is in the fat, as it is in most things. Just because you cut it off, and then add it back does not make beef cheap. Besides the best chili is made from ground beef anyway. It needs some fat in it.
In the old days during one of the summers I worked at the packing house I was in charge of the production of ground beef. The carefully calibrated scientific method used to produce the proper amount of beef to fat was the easiest for the 33 percent fat ground beef used by the school district. Two shovel fulls of beef chunks to one shovel full of fat chunks, chunked that is into the hopper on top of the grinder. Very tasty.
You are incorrect. My mother said a bowl of red requires tomato sauce. Not much, but some.