Thrasher Magazine

The annual Chili Bowl Cook-Off is going down August 27th in SF. Check out last years edit and this Skarfing Material recipe for "Chile of the Sea."

Chile Of The Sea

By Chef Boy Amihungry

It's been a real long day, you're tired and hungry. But there is nothing substantial to eat anywhere in the house. The fridge is bare except for a hard cube of butter, a couple half empty jars of mayo, an onion and a can of beer. Not much of a meal in that. In the freezer is a tray of ice cubes, a black banana, and three pounds of frozen 'Rock Cod'. The fish is the closest to thing to something edible. You search further, the cupboard perhaps? There's a couple bottles of chili sauce, some salt, a can of generic chili con carne (chili beans with meat) and a jar of minced garlic. Now if you think about it, something could be constructed from a few of these menial ingredients. That's what happened to me between paychecks just last month, so I invented my new dish, Chile Of The Sea. It's as simple as this:

Ingredients

-Frozen fish, your choice
-Butter, cube
-Garlic, minced
-Chile con carne, can

Preparation

1) Thaw out your fish (type and amount of fish is not important just make sure it's not poison fish, or a fish you caught in polluted waters) in a bowl of cool water. If you try and rush by thawing your fish in warm or hot water, the fish will instantly spoil and you will get sick and die if you eat it.

2) Now that you have some thawed-out fish sitting in front of you, you'll need the rest of the ingredients, which are: the cube of butter, the jar of minced garlic, the can of chile con carne and the proper oven cookware. In this case, I used a square aluminum cake pan. Preheat the oven to about 350°-375°. Coat the pan with some butter, place the fishies in the pan and sprinkle some garlic over the top of them. "How much garlic?" you ask. Well, the way I see it, you can never use too much garlic. Place two thin slabs of butter on each fish, then slam the pan into the oven. Cook for about eight minutes.

3) Pull out the tray and pour the entire contents of the generic chile con carne (name brand chile con carne is O.K.) over the fishies and slam back into oven to cook for an additional four to five minutes. After the time is up, touch the beans with your finger to see if they're hot. If so, then the meal is cooked good. Dump into a plate and eat it. Simple huh? Goes good with Cokes, Pepsis and even milk.