Recreating Cincinnati Chili From Taste | Reverse Engineering | Bon Appétit
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- čas přidán 11. 10. 2023
- We challenged resident Bon Appétit supertaster Chris Morocco to recreate Cincinnati chili in the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen. The catch? He'll have to identify what he's making with a blindfold over his eyes, letting each of his other senses guide the way.
Director: Chris Principe
Director of Photography: Kevin Dynia
Editor: Rob Malone
Host: Chris Morrocco
Guest : Ines Anguiano
Director of Culinary Production: Kelly Janke
Producer: Tyre Nobles
Culinary Producer: Lauren Palmeri
Line Producer: Jennifer McGinity
Associate Producer: Oadhan Lynch
Production Manager: Janine Dispensa
Production Coordinator: Elizabeth Hymes
Camera Operator: Jeremy Harris
Production Assistant: Alex Mitchell; Noah Belsky
Culinary Assistant: Asnia Akhtar
Researcher: Vivian Jao
Post Production Supervisor: Andrea Farr
Post Production Coordinator: Scout Alter
Supervising Editor: Eduardo Araújo
Assistant Editor: Lauren Worona
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I really miss the grocery trip part of this show.
Same! I loved watching him wander the store and contemplate the different options.
Same!
Same
Yep. He also made different choices when he would go out and see the products himself, which might bring him closer to the correct result.
Yes!!! Bring back Chris riding the cart!
Telling the pro chef to taste the entire dish the way it was intended was hilarious. 😂
Straight Scary for Halloween.
He seems familiar with the name and concept but unfamiliar with the implementation. The only explanation for not using the cheapest, yellowest cheddar by default is he may never have seen a picture of the dish.
Finally I keep yelling TAKE A WHOLE BITE ! 😂😂😂
That's what I'm thinking every time I see him pick and peck at a dish.
Like Hawaiian Pizza, I think Cincinnati chili was invented by a Greek diner owner. When you know that, the cinnamon in a tomato based dish makes more sense.
I think it's all ironic, possibly a practical joke. Cincinnati Chili is the Rocky Mountain Oysters of Ohio.
Cincinnati style chili is pasticcio but stripped down and reimagined for a quick serve diner. If you’re familiar with the Greek style dish this makes so much sense. I loved the challenge of this.
@@Hey_Damj I don’t do a lot of Greek cooking but I don’t remember using much cumin. To me, chili without cumin feels wrong.
my friend made skyline chili dip for us, and the first thing out of my mouth was "this tastes like greek food", so it all adds up.
@@emmysings Like Hawaiian pizza, I think Greek diner owners weren't afraid of offending overly sensitive gourmets. I knew a couple when I was growing up. One's version of "hot wings" was tossed in sweet and sour type BBQ sauce and then liberally dusted with crushed chilies (sort of tastes like Korean wings). His kebabs were amazing.
Cincinnati native here. What always throws people off, and what threw Chris off here, is that it's not a chili in the traditional sense. It's somewhere between Greek bifteki (in terms of ground beef spicing) and Spaghetti Bolognese (in terms of assembly and it being more of a sauce), with American chili ingredients (raw onion, beans) and cheese thrown on the top as condiments. It's ultimately a fusion dish you really only find in the US.
This is fascinating information thank you! There's something to cool about seeing the way that the diaspora fuse food styles in the States.
Was there enough cheese in the example?
Never in my life have a seen a way with such a pathetic amount of cheese. It needs a giant unmelted pile on there.
Not even remotely. Double it, triple it, maybe more. There should be enough cheese that you can see a small amount of spaghetti around the edges at the bottom, and none of the chili.@@mrbear1302
no there is usually triple that amount.@@mrbear1302
As a Cincinnatian, there's nowhere near enough cheese on the one first brought out. It should be a mountain.
I always tell people to think of it as Greek bolognese rather than chili, and I think it makes more sense that way
I was pleasantly surprised at how accurate the judge was at explaining how it should be eaten and what not
Also not so pleasantly surprised by those scores!!! I was like he’s missing half the ingredients lol 😂
I love that she included the Tabasco/oyster cracker torpedo.
Ines CUTTING the chili instead of twirling it. SHE UNDERSTANDS THE ASSIGNMENT
As a Cincinnatian who loves Skyline, your comment (while lifting the plate) "this has got to be like 5 pounds of food" was amazing! A large 5-way is a heavy plate, but nothing beats it when you want Cincy comfort food. Cheers!
I cannot express clearly enough how much I love these episodes. I can appreciate how much effort and emotion goes into each one, but I’m still going to be needy here and beg for more of them without so long between. You are my culinary wizard Chris and I gotta have more! ❤️🥳
Halfway in, and I just know he’s going to hate that the beans aren’t in the chili. It’s definitely weird, but as a diner food, makes total sense. Easier for customers to customize!
Beans don’t belong in chili 🤡 neither does spaghetti
Genuinely one of my favorite CZcams shows. Keep it up Chris Morocco!!!!!
Stationed in Dayton for five years, really grew to love this stuff and have been collecting "recipes" for it for years, but none had the clove, nor the brown sugar, so I have something new to try. Thanks!
At Skyline they actually do mix tomato paste mixture in with the pasta so the pasta is not technically plain. And we also use WAY more cheese. And hot sauce!
I think of all the things this is missing is just the absolute mountain of finely shredded cheese. And Inez had it dead to rights, you cut the whole thing down to get the layers. Five Ways: 1 - Spaghetti, 2- Chili, 3 - Cheese, 4 - Onions, 5 - Beans. The cheese always gets added to the plate last, but ordered as a 3, 4 (ya gotta say if it's beans or onions) or 5 way. As someone who grew up in Cincinnati and long since moved away this is the one thing I crave in the middle of the night. And I've also gotta shout out Gold Star Chili as the rival franchise. That was the one we had in my hometown long before Skyline came in. THANK YOU for repping Ohio's weirdest food!
I had no idea Cincinnati chilli was so different to normal chilli! I really thought it was just chilli on spaghetti. But no cumin? The beans are a topping? Cocoa powder?!!!
Cocoa powder can do wonders with different spices! Adds a really great richness into the spices like cayenne and star anise
I was introduced to Gold Star and Skyline chili when I moved to Ohio back in the 70's. It is the most unique taste I've encountered. It was wonderful...and 5 ways! Kinda miss it.
Hysterical when Chris came up out of the rolling bin.
I was born and raised in Cincy....the proper way is to NOT brown the ground beef but actually boil it in the seasoned liquid to make that pureed texture
i watched the video
yeah...oops..premature comment...@@sommelierofstench
@@eyemduckk haha! it happens. cheers
The moment at 16:20 when he is told what ingredients are in and what wasn’t in was like the head turning reveal in a who done it. Amazing moment that had me burst out laughing. This was great. I’ve had skyline chili once when I visited Cincinnati. Definitely a unique regional dish. It was fun to see someone who definitely knows their way around food try to re-create it without specific knowledge of the items involved.
Cincinnati chili is an institution in Ohio ❤ I loved seeing something so local and special to my area here!!!
and yet somehow it never spread to other places the way NY Pizza or San Francisco Sourdough, or Buffalo Chicken Wings, or Kansas City BBQ or Philly Cheese Steak, or Italian Risotto or French Coq au Vin did (etc. etc.) When something so beloved never leaves the place of it's origin, it's probably for the best (and b/c it's not palatable).
the ones who get it, get it and the ones who don't, don't. and that's okay, the ones who get it will be enjoying, you don't have to. :) @@itsgoingtobeok-justbreathe4808
As a Cincinnati native I’m always so confused why the idea of chili and spaghetti is seen as strange! Obviously the cinnamon is odd, but it is amazing!
Didn't grow up in Cincinnati (try minnesota) but we had chili spaghetti sometimes growing up. It's kinda strange but not really
Chili Mac makes much more sense. So does Frito pie. Spaghetti is weird with such a chunky sauce. Spaghetti wants something creamy that will cost the noodles easily.
@@broobit7540Cincinnati chili is a thin sauce that goes over the noodles. That’s why it works.
The cinnamon isn't odd to me at all as an eastern Mediterranean chef.
i eat chili with rice, so why not pasta? not weird to me. visually it could be a bolognese with added beans. the weird part is cutting the spaghetti. you could just use smaller pasta and eat it as is.
One interesting thing to note here: In his white or orange cheddar decision I kept thinking (as a Midwesterner that lives very close to Cincy), "I didn't even know there was a white cheddar until I was in my 20s." Interesting how some things you'd think were ubiquitous are just regional.
In my area of WA state we didn't get white cheddar until the late 90's. Darigold and Tillamook finally enlightened us. Lol
In my area of WA state we didn't get white cheddar until the late 90's. Darigold and Tillamook finally enlightened us. Lol
In my area of WA state we didn't get white cheddar until the late 90's. Darigold and Tillamook finally enlightened us. Lol
Yep, "white cheddar popcorn" was my introduction to the concept of white cheddar
All cheddar starts off as white, orange cheddar just has food coloring added to it. There's no flavor difference, only visual.
I love Chris! He puts his heart and soul into the best effort and it's always so close (no matter what the scores say!)
My favourite series on CZcams! Wonderful to see it every month or two. Makes my day.
I've eaten rogan josh at Indian restaurants that have a very similar flavor profile to Skyline chili, so hearing Chris mention garam masala made a lot of sense.
Ingredients 80%??? Chris got 11 out of 32 correct for a grand total of 34.3%. Chilli 3 out of 10 for 30%, seasoning 4 out of 14 for 28.5% and toppings 4 out of 8 correct for 50%.
I'm guessing they weigh some more important ingredients more than others
If nothing else, I'd say he was further away on round 2.
I think they take into account that some ingredients are just going to be next to impossible to "get" - the cocoa powder probably only adds color, the difference between yellow and white onion is pretty minor especially when cooked, and the difference between yellow and white cheddar is a plant-based food coloring that in no way changes the flavor of the cheese. I was surprised at some of the spices he missed, though.
@@bethw7686 Cocoa is actually a fairly important part of many Cincinnati chili recipes. I've tried a few and noticed its absence.
I really thought this would be a fail or barely pass. I mean, sure, it's chilli and cheese on spaghetti but he did miss many ingredients and his technique was largely incorrect. Not boiling the beef? (Weird af to me but fundamentally different to browning in oil) Blooming the spices instead of adding after liquid? Beans cooked in instead of a topping? No cocoa powder? I don't understand.
I eat too fast to worry about cutting my spaghetti, but was still slightly offended by the use of the knife to do it instead of the edge of the fork 😂
you have to be american.
@@robopecha what gave it away, the eat fast part or the Cincinnati Chili part? And if its about the fork, thats literally how they do it lol why would you also dirty a knife for something like noodles?
What's funny to me is IMO Chris loses points because he doesn't think "normals" (as Sorted food calls them) enough. Some things when I think chili is you need chili powder and yellow cheddar. He always misses a few tiny points because he doesn't gravitate to more general ideas for some things.
Chris would lose his mind over the sorted 'normals' chaos. He would not be able to deal with them😂
@@iris4520 Run out of the kitchen saying this is too much to deal with especially if it was Barry or Jamie. 🤣🤣
I grew up in Louisville, KY. My mom would make us normal chili, but serve it with noodles as if it were Cincinnati style. We've had Skylines in the area for years now, and everyone I know who likes chili loves it.
People always gravitate towards the cinnamon, but allspice is the real star in Cincinnati chili imo
I remember when the Skyline on Bardstown near Mid City Mall opened up. I was in heaven!
Skyline rules!
I grew up in Cincinnati and I lived in Louisville for awhile. I saw many people in Louisville cook their noodles in the chili. I found it so odd. But I was thankful their was a skyline in town.
fav show on this channel ily chris
Cincinnati was like, "how can we create a single dish that will offend the northeast and the southwest at the same time?"
This is correct. Meanwhile as a Southerner raised on weird casseroles and struggle foods I’m like “oh, this is fine…makes sense.” My Florida-panhandle raised dad used to cook his spaghetti sauce with chili powder in it for some reason as his “special ingredient.”
These are the best videos. Chris is king. Please make more.
You're the GOAT Chris!🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤
I lived in Cincinnati for a couple years during high school. I miss skyline chili so much. My mom buys the cans every year for Christmas
Get the pouches if you can, they are so much better than the cans!
Thank you for taking a big bite of the whole dish! We’ve been waiting for that 😂
i would like if chris could keep comparing taste the whole time. like idc about his ability to remember, i care about his ability to replicate
I love the outro how Chris is saying there is care and consideration with the ingredients. My family and I have always joked that Cincinnati chili happened while someone was cooking chili over their spice rack and chocolate and cinnamon fell in, and they didn’t have time to remake it.
She was very generous.
I did a lot of research on this, and with the help of Christine Cushing's channel on CZcams, what you have here is deconstructed Pastitsio. Look at her ingredients. Cinnamon, cloves, allspice tomatoes in some form. The urban legend story is that Greek immigrants who served this in what is still a largely German heritage city, they called it chili because that's what it looks like. Greeks use a bechamel cheese sauce over the top of meat sauce and pasta. Cincinnati chili is assembled the same way. It's fast food here in Cincinnati. My go to? Four-way onion with a side order of cheese. Spaghetti, sauce, raw onion, cheddar cheese. Four-way. There's a great recipe for this in The Joy of Cooking. I'll buy one for you when you visit. Great job, the both of you.
Skyline! Oh memorie. Time to go eat there again! I love that place
I really don't get why the scoring is always so generous. Chris was really off with the chili this time - it's like a 65 for ingredients IMHO. Even Chris agrees lol. He's excellent at this, we know it, he knows it. I think he can take some lower scores.
I agree! the flavor profile seemed totally off which is the most important part! he can take it.
My mom's chili has cinnamon in it (and she makes the best chili) so cinnamon in chili is not at all weird to me. We didn't eat spaghetti with our chili growing up, but I do like to prepare it that way now as an adult.
why does this dish not use another kind of pasta that is just easy to scoop up? the cutting pasta seems just ridiculous when there are so many kinds available. but it also gives the dish much more character, if it has rules on how to eat it!
Dang! I gotta get my Cincinnati Chili game on soon! I love the Greek flavor profile!
As a Queen City resident, I fully and completely support this video! 💜😍💜😍
I am obsessed with the bengal motif. So on point 👌
As a Cincinnati native I immediately knew he was going to make this way more upscale than it’s meant to be😂
I don't think it's fair to dock him for the onion as white/yellow onions are practically identical.
Surprisingly the yellow onion is much stronger flavor when eaten with the dish since they’re raw. Really changes the flavor!
@@lindsaymiller1669
Wrong. White onions are stronger.
Yellow onions are milder and sweeter. Think Vidalia onions.
If you've ever been to a skyline chili, you know they didn't add enough shredded cheddar to that plate! Lol😂
I rarely have a 5 way which is what they are looking at. I always get a 3 way (spaghetti, chili, cheese). A 5 way in this video is that just with onion and beans on it.
I always wonder why this is such a weird concept to people. There's nothing wrong with a bolognese on spaghetti, but you add beans and it's alien cuisine?!
Grew up in Cincy so it's normal for me, admittedly the cinnamon and chocolate is a bit odd though.
I don't think chili+spaghetti is all that weird. What is weird is "chili" that looks and tastes more like used coffee grounds than anything else.
The problem is that Fritos are a way better base than spaghetti.
I mean Brits put chili over rice. Some people just do silly things
@@mattymattffsChili on Rice is the go to in Hawaii as well
@@takolatte6708I have no idea why I have never thought to put chilli over rice! Next chilli making day, rice will occur!
So much fun, you rock Chris.
i wholeheartedly recommend adding cinnamon and cocoa powder or even dark chocolate to all kinds of chili
His reaction to the spaghetti made my day
They do not use cheddar cheese it is Colby.
I like these two together!!
When will you people learn there is no limit to the amount of chris morocco content we will watch
I loved this one, enjoyed it a lot❤😊
Can we get a version of this show where Chris gets to see the dish then has to cook it blindfolded 🫣
Fav series always
A series where Chris reacts to these videos so we can see him react to his misdirections and confusion would be so funny! 😂
There is a lot of variation between restaurants in Cincy Chili. Skyline is more liquid and mild than Gold Star which is the other major chain. Gold Star has a mild bite and more substantial base. Also generally use a pinto or more preferably a pink bean instead of kidney. Also, I don’t know how you got the chili you were trying to match,but neither Skyline nor Gold Star canned chili tastes the same as in restaurant. The meat is not browned, it is cooked in the broth and mashed up to very small bits. You have to have some sort of unsweetened chocolate or cocoa. Onions and beans are optional and how Cincinnati Chili comes in ‘ways’.
I like Ines' look during the judging
I feel you on the spaghetti situation! Just laying it there plain on the plate and then dumping sauce on top feels and looks so wrong! But that's how this dish is made for some reason lol....Also the cinnamon is very normal to me as an eastern Mediterranean chef. :)
cincinnati native here, i grew up on skyline! my mom ate it almost every day of her pregnancy with me 🤣 so awesome to see this ep
She is so beautiful!!!
absolutely shaking and crying because we havent gotten a new 'sode yet. i hope all is well, Mr. Morocco.
The only BA series I still watch. All the goodness went away years ago. When Chris leaves, its all over.
Devious idea for an episode - give Chris one of his own recipes to recreate.
Ines is super sweet. She padded his score, but Cincinnati Chili is super weird. The cutting of the pasta hurt my Italian heart.
Im not even Italian, but I couldnt see this either 😅
One of my favorites!!
I love Ines!
The problem with chili is you can literally put anything in it and call it chili. There is a reason they have so many chili festivals and chili competitions. Everyone makes chili differently, it's impossible to guess EVERY ingredient correctly. I personally put beer in my chili and when he decided to put beer in his it just made sense to me, but there was no beer in it which would throw a lot of people off.
he FINALLY ate it altogether like a normal person
Wow this scoring was generous.
Why give him a 87% on technique on V.1? He browned the meat and onions together and put the spices in first to develope flavour. Inés boiled the ground meat and added in the spices waaay last. How did that only make a 13% difference?
The scoring is just for fun.
I think its just because the dish is fairly simple to make when looking at the order of operations. I thought it seemed low too, but its really just prepping the meat and spaghetti, and then topping the noodles with chili, toppings, and cheese lol. Not really much to ding him on besides the order.
It’s crazy the Cincinnati debate between skyline (for the cinnamon) & gold star (for the Chocolate)……& skyline uses unsweetened cocoa powder! My life is a lie🤣🤦🏾♀️.
Even the fact that he picked up on meat, beans and a sharp dairy in the first five seconds is impressive to me 😭
Chris is the only reason I’m still subbed to BA
Cincy chili has a few serious curve balls in it, it upsets a lot of people, but having grown up there I can confirm it is quirky but delicious ✌️
People who grew up eating it like it, but most people I know who came to it as adults find it weird.
Chris was in top form today! Nailed the recipe and even where it originated! I'm glad Ines was generous and rounded him up to a B+. Well deserved.
YEAH KEVIN!
Getting a 90% for appearance for the first dish is WILD
Chris version always looks the best to me ❤😢
what kind of new math is this? chris definitely should have gotten 50% for ingredients
They never should have counted Paprika as incorrect. It's powdered chili, aka chili powder. It'd be like counting off for using Canola oil vs vegetable oil. But maybe they only did that in the checkboxes and corrected it in the digits, improving the score.
@@blairhoughton7918I’d hardly call bell peppers chilli
I am pretty sure there's got to be some kind of weighting system between the ingredients. For example, leaving out beef would be worth a lot more than leaving out bay leaves.
@@blairhoughton7918that's like saying a grapefruit is the same as an orange just because they're both citrus
@@imarockstarification Paprika is ground capsicum annuum, which includes breeds (not species, all the same species) of pepper like bell, jalapeno, cayenne, banana, poblano, and others. "Paprika" is just the Hungarian word for the stuff. People who cook a lot, pro or not, should know that.
Both rice and pasta should be mixed with unsalted butter imo
I'm only 3 minutes in and I'm sure it's a softball for Chris. Considering some of the tough ones that have been thrown for him I'm here for it.
When will Chris start shopping for himself again?
Not enough cheese on that 5-way. There should be an unholy pile of cheese on top. And you're supposed to cut off a bite and scoop it up, not twirl the spaghetti.
An unholy pile 😂 this is soo accurate!
Enough cheese that you are guaranteed a mess of cheese on the table.
Her eyes are insanely beautiful
This would have been one that I would have excelled at as I had the unique situation where my roommate at the CIA for two years was a Cincy native who was obsessed with his Cincinnati Chili. Definitely a tough one. Me personally i actually like the chili itself, but served over spaghetti is a big nope for me lol
8:12 the receiving chili inpersonation lolll
What a reasonable judgement.
Chris Morocco, what do you gave against a robust spice blend? Also beef broth and yellow cheddar cheese. There are definite geographic preferences for one vs. the other. For the Midwest, I would automatically think yellow not white.
Yeah, always pick the less classic and classy option for Midwest.
Anyone who's never tried Skyline chili, it is exactly as upsetting and off-putting to a normal American palate as you expect it to be. My brain just KEPT coming back to "but why is there cinnamon in this?!!"
All month waiting for that video
I met this guy in San Francisco, and after getting to know each other for a while, he invited me over to his house for dinner. I had never heard of Cincinnati chili before, but when I arrived, I now realized he was making Cincinnati chili except for the ground beef, was Oscar Meyer hot dogs.
I was polite and enjoyed the meal ! I refuse to go out with the white handsome creole boy again ! I had ever experienced a ghetto meal in life and that was it !
Cut the pasta!?!??! Lord have mercy 😂😂😂
Italians are rolling in their graves lol
Its the best way to keep the chili with the spaghetti. If you twirl it, you tend to fling most of the chili off. You can tell by his first bites how little chili hes getting.