BEN'S BONE CHILI WITH BLACKENED PEPPERS

Steps:

• Brown the meats in small batches to get a good brown, avoid overcrowding or you'll end up steaming the meat. Pour the meat out into a colander placed over a bowl so you can gauge how much rendered fat you want to add back into the chili depending on how fatty the cuts of meat you're working with are. We don't want a greasy chili but last time I made this I ended up returning all of the fat back into the pot.
• Swirl canola oil in a hot dutch oven until it shimmers and almost smokes.
• Add beef short ribs, brown on all sides and remove.
• Add the ground bison to the canola and short rib drippings, bison is very lean and the fat helps with the browning here.
• Remove browned bison and pour out the accumulated fat for later use.
• Brown the ground beef in small batches, removing rendered fat between batches.
• Add beef soup bones to the pot and brown on all sides.
• At this point, the bones can stay in the pot while you return at least 2 tablespoons of the fat you've collected at this point.
• Turn the heat down and add the diced onion, garlic, shallot, red pepper flakes and salt. Slowly sweat the aromatics with the fat and bones until soft.
• Return all of the meats to the pot and stir it up, set the heat to low, allowing the flavors to meld while we work with the other ingredients.
• Put a copper or stainless steel pan, preferably with low sides which will allow steam to escape, over high heat.
• Add the whole cumin, peppercorns and coriander seeds to the pan and move constantly to toast - remove once you can smell the spices toasting.
• Remove spices from the heat and let cool.
• Slice the peppers lengthwise and remove seeds and stems.
• With the pan very hot, place the peppers cut side down until the edges blacken.
• Turn the peppers skin side down and blacken parts of the outside, remove when the peppers are about half covered in blacked, burned areas.
• Grind the toasted spices and add about 2 tablespoons of the mixture to the chili.
• Add oregano and smoked paprika.
• Dice the blacked peppers and add to the chili.
• Stir the pot up and return to medium heat for 10 minutes to allow the flavors to mingle. We do all of this before adding the tomatoes which tend to take over the chili, so we want to give the meat time to absorb the other flavors.
• Add chopped fresh tomatoes.
• Add can of diced tomatoes and tomato paste. Return to a simmer.
• Add beef stock. The chili should be thick but stir and bubble easily, add more broth if it's too thick.
• Put the lid on the dutch even and put in a 250 degree oven for at least an hour.
• Stir in kidney beans to the pot and return to the oven for another hour at minimum.
• At this point, the chili is ready to enjoy, but the meat on the short ribs may be tough. If you can't wait, just server without the rib meat.
• After another three hours in the oven at 250, the rib meat will be fall off the bone tender and ready to serve.
• Serve with sour cream.