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Recipes · Springfield Chilli

Smitty’s Lawson’s Tavern Chilli

The house recipe of Franklin 'Smitty' Smith, chilli-maker at Springfield’s Lawson’s Tavern for about 25 years, which he released after the tavern closed. It was reported as shared with the State Journal-Register; we could not locate that article and took the recipe from Midwesterner’s 2020 reprint. No Springfield parlor has published its own recipe, and this is the most fully documented tavern recipe we found.

Serves a crowd (no count given) · Not stated in the source; rendering the suet takes the longest

A white bowl of chilli with ground beef and kidney beans under a glossy sheen of red fat.

Method

  1. 1

    Put the suet and the cup of water in a large pot over high heat and stir often as it comes to a boil. Skim off the foam.

  2. 2

    Keep cooking until the suet has rendered completely. The cracklings can stay unless they taste strong.

  3. 3

    Let the fat cool a little, then bring it back up to medium-high heat.

  4. 4

    Add the beef and keep breaking it up and stirring as it browns. It should brown without turning crisp.

  5. 5

    A few minutes before the meat is done, stir in all the spices, keeping the meat moving so nothing sticks.

  • Smith warned against hamburger, which he said gets too crisp.
  • The cooked meat keeps several weeks refrigerated, or a year or more frozen if tightly wrapped.
  • The rendered suet is the cooking fat and stays in the pot, which gives Springfield chilli its oil.

Sources

  1. Peter Glatz, 'The Chilli Capital of the World,' Midwesterner (2020)