Miles Davis' Vintage Chili Recipe Calls For This Unconventional Ingredient
Some people are so idiosyncratic that their personality shines through every aspect of their lives, including what comes out of their kitchens. Legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis was no doubt among them. The original "Prince of Darkness" put a distinctive twist on chili. Rather than pair the dish with tortilla chips or cornbread, Davis typically served his chili on top of spaghetti — a play on the traditional "chili mac."
Davis' recipe proceeds in a relatively familiar fashion for most of the process, cooking meat with onions, beans, and seasoning, then simmering to meld everything together. The changes begin during the serving and plating process. Davis started each dish with a serving of cooked spaghetti noodles, then topped them with the simmered meat and bean mixture.
Visually and structurally, the dish has some resemblance to Cincinnati or "Skyline" chili. That version is also piled atop spaghetti noodles, but features a vastly different flavor profile, with a taste evoking Mediterranean meat sauces and warming spices such as cinnamon and clove.
Davis' vintage chili had more than one out-of-the-ordinary tweak
The inclusion of spaghetti is the most unusual, but it's not the only unconventional aspect of Miles Davis' chili recipe. For one, it calls for cooking the onion and meat in suet, a type of cow or sheep fat with a mild flavor that adds moisture to a dish. Davis also uses a combination of ground beef, pork, and veal, a mixture more commonly seen in meatball recipes or traditional meatloaf than chili. Finally, he added a single drop of red wine vinegar before simmering the chili for an hour, although its impact on two pounds of ground meat and two cans of kidney beans is likely negligible.
As innovative as Davis was in the world of music, he couldn't take full credit for this chili method. His wife revealed in interviews that the dish was inspired by one he'd eaten at a soul food restaurant on Chicago's South Side, where incorporating suet into a chili base was more common.
In many cases, preparing chili can be a simple, straightforward experience. Our 5-ingredient chili recipe is one such example. However, those looking to spice up their next chili night should consider Davis' approach and give the Prince of Darkness' chili a try — spaghetti and all.