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Chili Con Carne

One of our weekly staples is Chili Con Carne served Nacho style (i.e. on corn chips & cheese, topped with Sour Cream and Salsa, and sometimes lettuce and jalepenos).

Being an everyday recipe, I’ve not really bothered to record it anywhere, which on reflection is somewhat remiss of me esp. when considered in an historical context. i.e. how many people know what Ancient Roman’s ate on a daily basis ? Not many I contend, since day to day cookery is rarely recorded.

Thus to this end, I plan on being a bit more diligent when it comes to recording what I cook. Therefore, I present my Chili Con Carne recipe.

Ingredients.

  • 400 – 500 g of beef mince
  • 1 onion
  • 1 capsicum ( colour doesn’t matter )
  • 2 to 4 cloves of garlic
  • a couple of mushrooms
  • 2 rashers of bacon
  • 1 can of tomatoes ( I usually use Roma tomatoes )
  • a splash of soy sauce
  • a splash of vinegar or tabasco or chili vinegar
  • 1.5 to 2 teaspoons of Mexican Chilli powder (I make my own, and will document that recipe at some stage too)
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • optionally 1/4 teaspoon of cocoa or drinking chocolate
  • 1 medium tin of red kidney beans
  • 1 small tin of corn kernels
  • some oil (I use olive oil)
  • optionally a capful of liquid smoke, if you want a smokey flavour

Method.

Dice the onion, capsicum and garlic fairly finely and add to a large pot with some oil in the bottom. Sautee for a few minutes.

Dice the bacon rashers (removing the rind) and throw that in the pot too, with the diced mushrooms. Stir.

Once the onion has started to go clear (or brown if you’ve got the heat too high), add the mince. Break up the mince with your spoon and let it brown, stirring every now and then.

Now add the soy sauce, vinegar, Mexican chili powder, kidney beans and tomatoes. Break the mushrooms up with your spoon and stir through. If you’re adding cocoa/chocolate, do so here.

Let that simmer uncovered for a while, stirring as needed. When it’s starting to thicken a little, taste test it and add salt &/or pepper if required.

It’s done when the sauce is no longer watery (about 1/2 hr to 1hr).

Notes.

You can eat it straight, serve it Nacho style or make a Mexican Lasagne out of it using burrito breads spread with refried beans and layered with cheese. This same mix is also useful as burrito filling.

posted to Mexican,Recipes @ 11:22 pm

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    […] We had mince defrosted and I didn’t feel like making the usual pasta bake or nachos so I figured I’d make something with pastry. My orginal idea was to make some meat filled pastry cigars that I’d seen mention of online from some people who’d had them in Morocco. However, I didn’t have a decent Moroccan pastry recipe, so I settled on a pie. […]

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