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A customer at my coney on Michigan Ave said my chili tasted like it came from a can, so I changed one thing
I run a small coney spot over on Michigan Ave and had been using the same chili recipe for almost 4 years, thinking it was fine since nobody ever complained. Last month a regular named Dwayne who eats here 3 times a week pulled me aside and just said flat out, this tastes like the stuff from a can, man. It stung but I sat with it and realized I had been rushing the spice bloom, dumping the cumin and chili powder in cold instead of toasting them in the beef fat for a couple minutes first. That one change, plus letting it simmer a full 90 minutes instead of 45, got me 3 new regulars in the last two weeks and Dwayne now brings his brother in on Fridays. Any other Detroit owners get honest feedback you hated hearing at first but it ended up paying off?
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emeryfox4d ago
One small thing on the spice bloom part. You don't want to toast ground cumin and chili powder in beef fat for a couple minutes, that's way too long and they'll burn bitter on you in like 30 to 45 seconds. Ground spices hit that sweet spot fast. Whole seeds are the ones that can take a couple minutes in the pan. If the longer bloom is what woke your chili up, fine, but watch that pan close because scorched cumin will wreck a whole batch.
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