The different recipes for this dish are myriad, go and do a search, oh wait a minute that may be why you are here now, so there you go loads of them. But this is my way, I love chili it's been a favourite ever since I was a kid and used to have chili with my American friends who lived down the street, a proper bowl of red. I started cooking my own using Old El Paso chili seasoning when I was a teenager and have been doing so ever since all the time tweaking and fine tuning my recipe. I eventually dropped using the packet mix seasoning in favour of a cupboard full of the component spices and herbs.
Let me first tell you what I consider constitutes a fine bowl of chili. It is a stew of meat and peppers with beans, as simple as that really. The result though must be a deeply flavoured spicey broth that is like hug in a bowl, and its very more(ish), like heroin, I believe thats very more(ish), yeah like that.
Ingredients (Serves 3-4 Big portions)
500g Ground (minced) beef I have also been known to use half ground pork too.
Red peppers (one big one or two pointy ones) or karyatis roasted peppers, use two or three from the jar, these are great and I often have them in the fridge
Dried chilies, Ancho, Pasilla or Mullato - or even better a combination of all them, you can find them online or check out a farmers market. I got mine at East Oxford Farmers Market, these are toasted and soaked
Some fresh chilies, remove the seeds, I like a mix of different types, what ever I can get really about four or five
2 tsp of Chipotle Chilli
A medium Onion finely chopped
A stick of celery finely chopped
Garlic
A tin of Tomatoes
A tin of Red Kidney beans
A bottle or can of beer (and one or two for you)
A squeeze of half a lime
Spices
5 tsp Cumin
2 tsp Smoked paprika
2 tbsp Oregano
1 tsp Tyme
Ground pepper
2 tsp Garlic granules
plus some chili flakes if you want more heat but quite often the dried chilies and fresh ones give plenty of heat especially as I am not bothered about removing all the seeds from the soaked chilies
I get all these in a bowl ready to go, plus you can see if you missed anything out
Get the big frying pan out and a casserole dish with a lid or a big pan with a lid or a plate that will work like a lid albeit a really hot one with no handles.
Get the dry frying pan really hot and thrown in the dried whole chilies two at a time quickly letting them blister a bit but not really burn, get these all in a bowl and pour on boiled water, I then place another bowl on them to hold them in the water, leave these for about half an hour
Now while they soak it time to do chopping, onion first and then the celery stick, a fairly fine dice. Get them in the heated up pan with some olive oil and turn it down low, chuck a bit of salt in and let them get all see thru trying not to let them catch although a little bit of browning is good. Now chop all those peppers up, chilies, red peppers and take the soaked chilies out, tear out the stalks, getting rid of some seeds too and chop them too.
New info: I am now using the handblender with the jug it comes with to blitz the soaked chili with the soaking water, what you get is this amazing chili goo.
Add all these to the pan. Reserve the soaking water from the chilies. Chuck in the chopped garlic too
Get the frying pan hot again and throw in half of the meat to brown it, making sure you get a bit of caramelization going on, pour off the excess fat that renders off it and chuck it into the pan. Now do the same with the other half of the meat, but once you have poured off the fat throw in the bowl of spices and give it a stir to toast/cook them a bit, then into the pan and stir it all together.
Let that sweat together on a low heat making sure it doesn't catch on the bottom. Chuck a stock cube into the pan and mix that in.
Add the tomatoes to the pan and mix them in, get the heat back up a bit
Pour in any chili soaking liquid thats left and bring the heat back up, get it bubbling a little, then in with the beer. (you may need to use some beer to rinse out the blitzed chili paste, don't want to loose any goodness.
Once it is bubbling away gently, turn the heat right down and put the lid on.
And so the waiting begins, go and do something like go and listen to some music, read a book, watch TV, write a song, write some poetry, troll online, etc, etc … Nip back from time to time and give it a stir, check the seasoning add some salt and pepper
After about an hour or so add the can of beans including the liquid in the can, stir and put the lid on again. Keep checking and stirring, it shouldn't lose too much liquid so if it does add some water it should be soupy but thick
The waiting again, if you can leave it for about two hours that would be good but I do like three hours. Keep checking it
You can serve it right away but as ever if left overnight it will become even better
It can be served whichever way you like, my favourite is with tortilla chips and some cheese, I put some chips in the bowl and cover them with chili and a bit of cheese on top and maybe a dollop of sour cream. Also good with rice of course which can help it stretch a bit for more people.
Freeze what's left
If you like it let me know @tim_process on twitter
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