Successful chili cook-offs are easy to plan and execute.
Chili cook-offs can be serious competitions involving hundreds of contestants or a small gathering of friends and family vying for bragging rights in an intimate backyard setting. Whether your cook-off is big or small, following a few tips and guidelines ensures a fun-filled day that runs smoothly from set up through the awards ceremony.
Choosing a Venue
Cooks like lots of room to create their dishes, so make sure your venue is large enough to accommodate them. Each cook needs a table large enough to hold their hot plate or crock-pot as well as their ingredients, cooking utensils and judges' bowls and spoons. Be sure there are enough outlets and a sufficient amount of energy to simultaneously support many cooks: there is nothing worse than a power outage in the middle of a cooking competition. Provide a private area for the judges' to taste the chili and discuss their assessments.
Supplies and Decorations
Aside from a good supply of napkins, spoons and disposable bowls, provide water and crackers to cleanse the judges' palates in between tastings. Decorate the site with real and plastic chilies and other Tex-Mex themes, such as dried corn on the cob with attached husks, tamale wrappers, bowls of assorted fresh chili peppers, garlic braids and bottles of different types of dried beans.
Categories and Groups
How many competitive categories you have depends a lot on how many people are in the contest. If there are 10 or less contestants, stick with basic categories, like best beef, best vegetarian or best chicken chili. For less than five competitors, make it a straight contest for the best chili overall. Large competitions include groups broken down by levels of expertise like novice, experienced or expert and commonly have subcategories, such as most unusual ingredient, hottest chili, chunkiest chili --- even worst chili. You can also add other competitions for best cornbread, salsa or flan.
Choosing Judges
If there are professional cooks or restaurant owners in the neighborhood, ask them to be judges. Judges can also be selected based on their personalities, frankness, culinary experience or other attributes. Keep the group small and friendly to keep the event on track.
Picking Prizes
Chili cook-offs with many participants can award the grand prize winner with a quality pot or crock-pot donated by a local store and hand out gift cards from nearby restaurants to the runners up. Appropriate prizes for neighborhood cook-offs include bottles of hot sauce, chili pepper plants and six-packs of chilled beer or soda.
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