Reverse Engineering Cincinnati Chili in Europe: attempt #1

It turned very cold and rainy a couple weeks ago, which spurred a hankering for a big pot of chili. It started out too, as a quest to use up some bacon I had bought earlier, and maybe some chives I had on hand too. That I settled on a recipe for Cincinnati chili, which uses neither bacon nor chives, speaks to how much I miss Skyline I guess!

There were lots of different recipes that claim to have reverse engineered Cincinnati chili. I found a couple endorsements for a recipe from the Frugal Gourmet (it's copyrighted, but Google it - you'll find it); one of these endorsements said it was exactly the same as Skyline, so I had to try it.

Well here it is:

You can tell the colors are really off. I used whole wheat spaghetti, and the only shredded cheese I could find that had cheddar in it also had a couple other cheeses like Emmental. But I was able to find spices like allspice (piment in Dutch), real Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce, and real Tabasco, so I had high hopes.

But this came out really off. First of all the recipe calls for tomato puree, but I thought the texture in the end was way to thick. Also the taste was not right; it lacked a beefy flavor (I even added a beef bouillon cube). And I think the Worcestershire sauce was a bad call.

There are a few other recipes online which I shall attempt in the future!