At Deer Valley Resort, there are a handful of signature menu items skiers talk about long before they click into their bindings: the carrot cake, the chocolate chip cookie, an extensive salad bar or mountain dishes like elk or bison.  But few dishes have reached the near-mythic status of the re sort’s turkey chili. Deer Valley turkey chili is a staple that has been warming guests for decades and now sells more than 100,000 bowls each year, said Carolyn Allen, Deer Valley’s food and beverage director. The dish had already become a hallmark of the resort by the time she arrived during the 1997-98 season, so to better understand its history, Allen contacted Julie Wilson, the former longtime director. “She said it was in the ’90s that turkey was seen as a healthier option,” Allen said. “California cuisine was just getting popular. Turkey was considered healthier than beef, and black beans were getting popular. Same with roasted peppers.” At the time, Wilson worked with then-Executive Chef Clark Norris to create something contemporary and appealing in a market dominated by healthy options. So those ingredients, along with leeks originally, were incorporated into a new chili option, Allen said.  “They came up with the idea and tried to make something that was going to be popular at the time, and then it just took off,” Allen said. Today, she regularly hears guests request it the moment they walk into Silver Lake Lodge, the resort’s hot spot for turkey chili.  Credit: David Jackson/Park Record Credit: David Jackson/Park Record Various optional toppings for Deer Valley Resort’s famous turkey chili include sour cream, green onion, red onion, cheese, tomato and jalapeños. “I’m just astounded. I hear people walk into the restaurant areas, and they say, ‘Oh, we’ve got to get some of that turkey chili.’ They’ve obviously heard about it ahead of getting to Deer Valley and just know that it’s the thing to get,” Allen said. “I think it’s so popular because of the fact that it’s hearty food that people like when they’re skiing.” Silver Lake Lodge at Deer Valley’s mid-mountain is by far the busiest location for the item, said Marcia Danielli Lorenzi Hockman, who oversees that kitchen.  “We will sell almost three batches in a day, just in this location,” she said. Every morning, the team typically starts with two fresh batches, in addition to a batch made the previous day, Hockman said. Also, because the soup freezes well, they can make batches well ahead of time to freeze and use as backup. From a logistics standpoint, labor used to be one of the highest costs for the turkey chili, Hockman said, which is why they now order in pre-cut vegetables and turkey for the soup. The turkey, pre-diced into roughly one-inch cubes, is a combination of leg and breast meat, she said, a mix of light and dark meat to add extra flavor.  For the past three seasons, Hockman has entrusted the soup station to Assistant Sous Chef Jess Carter, meaning he’s now the turkey chili guy. And yeah, he could probably make it in his sleep. In the compact kitchen, Carter says the secret to keeping up with demand starts well before the burners are turned on. “Organization,” he said, “is No. 1. Sometimes we’re doing two to three batches at once, so to have everything set and ready to go in these buckets like this the day before is really essential. I would say, otherwise, you just wind up with a cluttered mess.” Credit: David Jackson/Park Record Credit: David Jackson/Park Record Each batch of turkey chili at Silver Lake Lodge uses huge quantities of ingredients like beans, red pepper, cream of corn, celery and onions. The lodge kitchen often sells three batches a day. Carter rattles off the ingredient list from memory, pointing to six 22-quart containers on the prep table: “It’s 60 pounds of turkey, and then we have 15 pounds of celery, 15 pounds of onions, and then 60 pounds of beans, whole corn, cream corn, red peppers. And then we have 4 gallons of chicken stock,” he said. To get that thick, stew-like consistency, Carter said each batch also uses 4 gallons of slurry mix made with rice flour and masa flour, so it’s gluten-free. Each batch is made in a massive pressure cooker — two round ones and one rectangular, the size of a box freezer — so they could have three going at once.  Browning the turkey is the first step, cooked with 9 pounds of butter, he said; for reference, that’s 36 normal-sized sticks of butter.  But of course, the seasoning blend is what brings the chili together. He holds up a gallon-sized zip-lock bag of pre-measured spices. “So to get the chili flavor, we bag up many of these and have them ready to go. And this is a blend of chili powder, cumin, coriander, oregano, stuff like that. This is the boom boom sauce,” he joked. “It’s actually a really good Southwestern style.” Once the turkey is browned and the ingredients are layered together, a full batch takes roughly 45 minutes to finish. Credit: David Jackson/Park Record Credit: David Jackson/Park Record Credit: David Jackson/Park Record Credit: David Jackson/Park Record Credit: David Jackson/Park Record Every morning, Deer Valley employees start two large batches of turkey chili in order to meet the demand. For Carter, who grew up in Dallas, he became the turkey chili guy by accident.  “I just came here to ski, and I’ve been working in kitchens all my life, so Marcia stuck me on the soup, and I never left,” he said. “I like it. I think there’s a sense of pride because we sell so much of it. So I kind of feel like a part of the Deer Valley thing.” In the role, he spends much of the winter producing not only the turkey chili but also other soups, from the usual daily staples like elk chili and tomato soup, plus rotating specials like minestrone, roasted red pepper or butternut squash, whatever he’s feeling. Does he ever make the turkey chili at home? Not really, he laughed. “Whenever I have family over, I usually make a small batch, just so they can kind of taste what I do on the daily. But other than that, I get plenty of it at work,” he said. Allen said at the Silver Lake Lodge kitchen, there’s always been the smell of turkey chili thanks to the spices.  With the resort’s expansion this season, which includes 100 new runs, comes more skiers, so Allen said they made the turkey chili line at Silver Lake double-sided this year to keep up with the demand.  The food and beverage team often jokes about the turkey chili, Allen said, throwing out silly solutions to the demand, especially as the resort plans to open the 60,000-square-foot Park Peak Lodge by the 2026-27 ski season.   “We’ve been joking that over at the East Village, we should have a turkey chili pipeline … where we make it at the bottom, where we just pipe it up to the top,” Allen said with a laugh. “You could have little stops along the way, where people would just stop and get turkey chili on tap.” The resort has leaned into the dish’s cult following in other ways as well. During the 2002 Winter Olympics, Deer Valley produced a turkey chili pin, Allen said — she’s one of the lucky few at the resort who still has one — and even a turkey chili sweater has appeared among retail offerings. Most popular is a packaged chili mix that can be purchased at Deer Valley Café, signature retail stores and online, Allen said. Beyond merchandise, the culinary team has also made the recipe widely accessible through cooking classes. “We’ve always wanted to share it so that people are taking home a bit of Deer Valley with them,” Allen said. “I don’t think we’ve ever really had any secrecy. Guests have asked us for recipes for things over the years, and we’ve always given them the recipes. I mean, if it’s good enough that you want to make it when you’re not here, then of course we’re going to share it.” The post How it’s made: Deer Valley’s famous turkey chili appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less