Flavor – Did I kill the chili’s heat by processing the tomatoes and onions together

I know that you specifically mention fruits, but I must admit, I personally haven't used any sweet fruits (except basic citrus fruits) in chili so I favorited this question to see what the community has to say.

That said, I have made chili with a combination of sweet and spicy, and I used one of my new favorite things: Jaggery. This unrefined sugar can be considered similar to brown sugar in use (I substitute equal amounts jaggery when a recipe calls for brown sugar), but not in composition - there are a lot of mineral salts left in it, because of the lack of refining and absence of chemicals that are usually used to process sugars. It's made similar to maple sugar; essentially it's boiled down to a syrup and dried.

I've used it in sweet and savory dishes, and it adds a depth of flavor that I find can't be matched with any other sugars I've used. I have a hard time describing it, because it's new to me, but it tastes very...complex, for lack of a better word. Its taste is kind of between brown sugar and molasses. It is sweeter than table sugar, but less sweet than honey. I do think that jaggery might add that "dark woods moodiness" element that you're looking for - in my opinion, it can take the simplest of dish and add a significant amount of depth and interest.

It's used to add a sweet element to a lot of hot curry dishes in India, which is why my mind immediately when to it the first time I thought of adding sweet to my chili.

If you're interested in using it you can find it at your local Indian grocer, or purchase it online, I first got it through Amazon just to try, but have since sought out local ethnic grocers because it's significantly cheaper that way.

I think you've got a wide berth of possibilities but what's above seems pretty restricted. What you are listing above sounds like a pretty straight-forward Midwestern American chili. It has the features of the standard chili spices, beans and tomatoes, with a nice variety of meats.

• To try to engineer a Russian chili I would expect more indigenous foods.

As @Cold suggests, beets would be great to add for their sugar content. However, there are quite a few American recipes that utilize potatoes, so you might seek those out. Are there other vegetables to substitute that you recall as more native? Other beans maybe? How about caraway, dill, chervil, tarragon?

Vodka would seem like an easy route to go to appease the indigenous aspect, but I don't think it would yield much results in terms of impacting the flavor; especially in the context of the extant chili recipe. Unfortunately, I can't see the benefit of buffeting vodka against the flavors of cumin, coriander, clove, let alone hot peppers. On the other hand, Russians produce some amazing beers (I am a big fan of Baltika), and I would recommend looking into switching to a lager flavor or Imperial Stout as I mentioned above.

But for real, my spin would be to approach this from a Solyanka point of view (which would definitely give you ceiling room to try incorporating Medovukha); or really any of the other amazing cold Russian soups. Or perhaps try to incorporate mini dumplings like Pelmani, mini Kotlety, or use Shashlyk-style prepared meats for the chili. I would also consider trying to get some lamb in the recipe, in particular at the expense of the chicken.

But don't forget, chili is all about what you want to put into it (<-- self-promotional plug); not what the standard template lists.

• The romantic version of the American myth about chili (in particular, Texas Red chili) frequently revolves around Cowboys planting peppers and onions on their most traveled roads. They would be carrying dried meats and, at night under starry skies, use kettles to cook the stew that became known as chili.
• What kind of story of Russian kindred spirit do you want to weave with your chili?