Real Chili surrogate figured out!

Back in Milwaukee, near the Marquette campus, there’s a little restaurant called Real Chili. It was pretty popular as an after hours place to eat since drinking too much can also give you the munchies. However, my friends and I can attest to it being appetizing while sober too.

The main dish is similar to something called Chili Mac and Chili Five Way at Steak n’ Shake, another home of Midwestern delicacies (oddly common in Florida too). It’s basically pasta with meat and/or pinto beans stacked on top. You mix in cheese, onions and/or sour cream and then lots of oyster crackers to suck up the grease. The cracker fights were also pretty entertaining but they really clamped down on that my senior year.

I stumbled upon a recipe that’s pretty close to the taste last week. It’s so simple, it’s genius. Boil up the pasta, I personally prefer angel hair due to the short cooking time, and then mix in Wolf brand canned chili. With or without beans is your choice, I’ve experiemented with both. You have to put the Wolf chili on top to get the effect. Wolf doesn’t quite have the consistency or the look Real Chili has yet it has the taste I remember. Then you can pour in those other touches I mentioned. I just need to take the time to dice up an onion.

For all you fellow Marquette alumni who want to know more, e-mail me.