Chili con Carne

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This is too often made with indifferent butcher’s mince. It should be made with steak which you chop or mince yourself, or get the butcher to do it for you.

But you choose the steak!

My recipe here is for 8 people, because this is a recipe that tends to get cooked for informal entertaining, and quite rightly so. Properly done, with a few side dishes that people can use to spice up their individual bowls, it makes a great stress-free supper dish.

I use rump steak, as much out of habit as anything else. There’s no reason why you should not use round steak and save a few dollars. It has a good flavor and will be tender enough after chopping and cooking.

If you are going to mince the steak, keep it fairly coarse so that it still retains a lot of texture, then follow the recipe below.

1kg chopped steak
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 crushed cloves of garlic
Oil for frying
2 chili peppers, deseeded and chopped
1tbsp of cumin
1tsp mace
1 tsp dried oregano
1tbsp paprika
1 large can of crushed tomatoes
800g tinned kidney beans*, drained
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste 1 square of dark chocolate

*Some cooks would never use tinned beans for this dish. They claim it has to be made from dried beans, soaked overnight and then cooked. My view is that the result is just the same and my way is a lot safer. Undercooked kidney beans are poisonous. So if you want a really entertaining evening……..

Heat some oil in a flame-proof casserole dish and brown the chopped steak in two separate batches, transferring each batch to a bowl of some kind as you finish it.

Next fry the onion until soft and then stir in the garlic, chili, the herbs and spices. When they are well coated add the tomatoes and heat through, then stir in the meat and transfer the tightly covered dish to the oven for 90 minutes.

Remove it at the end of that time and stir in the kidney beans and the chocolate. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and black pepper. When you serve this, have a hot chili sauce standing by so that people can adjust the heat to suit themselves. Also have some crackers, some ketchup, maybe a bowl of soured cream as well as some grated cheese. Invite people to add these as they please.

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