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Eat Cheese!

Chilli con Carne

Rowland Coping

Chilli is something that, let's face it, everyone thinks they're the best at.  It's why in the states you have chilli cook-offs.  It's a rite of passage, it's part of being a man.  You have to cook chilli.

That's why a lot of men won't like to read this.  My chilli is the best.  I've said it.  Feel free now to drown in your own inadequacy.

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Rowland says: Well, nothing yet.

Ingredients

- 500g-600g beef mince

- 2 x medium onions

- 2 x cloves garlic

- 2-8 x chillies

- 1 x beef stock cube

- 2 tsp chilli powder

- 1 tbsp cumin

- 1 tsp smoked paprika

- 2 tsp cayenne pepper

- 2 tsp dried coriander

- 2 tsp paprika

- 1/2 cinnamon stick

- 2 x 440g tinned tomatoes

- 2 x tins kidney beans

Notes

The quantities of spices and chilli are very much to taste. Being quite honest, I never measure any of them.


Here I used 4 or 5 bird's eye chillis and a couple of red what I think are Jalepenos. Hard to tell in this country.

Prepareation

  1. Start by chopping the onions, how you do so is up to you.  I cut the onions in half then lengthways
  2. Chop the garlic up fine or crush it in a crusher.
  3. Chop up your chillis quite fine.
  4. Oh, is that it?

Cooking

  1. Cook the onion and the chilli in the pan with a little oil on a medium/low heat.  Make sure you have the extractor on when you do this.  Not that it will help.
  2. Once the onion starts to soften and go a bit translucent, add the mince, the garlic, and a stock cube. 
  3. Make sure you break up all the mince clods as you stir it all together.
  4. Once the mince has browned and it's all cooking up nicely, add the tinned tomatoes, being sure to break it all up in the pan.
  5. Now it is time to add the spices.  This is where the magic happens.
  6. Leave it to simmer on a low heat for maybe 20 minutes.  You want the tomatoes to break down and relase all the tomatoey goodness.  Now might also be a good time to think about any sides (ie rice, whatever).
  7. Add the kidney beans, stir in.  Remove the cinnamon stick.  Leave to simmer gently for another 5-10 minutes.
  8. When most of the liquid has been absorbed, your chilli is ready to eat.  Although it's probably at it's best on the 4th or 5th day.

Serving Suggestions

I don't often do this, as my meal recipes are normally a contigious whole, but here's some ideas!

  1. Serve with rice, sour cream, jalepenos (better fresh but good luck getting those in the UK).
  2. As above, but with nice crusty buttered bread.  This is great.
  3. On a hot dog, with cheese. Further to the Superbowl I've been eating this every day.
  4. On a jacket potato.  If you run out of all the other things, I guess.
  5. In a wrap or tortilla with rice, salad, chilli sauce and such like to create a splendid burrito!  I can probably squeeze another recipe out of that mind.

OK with that in mind that's enough serving suggestions for now.

Summary

Now I could eat this stuff all day, in fact I don't feel like I make it nearly enough.

But I want more.  I want options.  I want your chilli too.

So why not register for the site, and submit your recipes?
I'll publish pretty much anything at this point.

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