#oneaday Day 380: My Flawless Every Time (Unless You Burn It) Chilli con Carne Recipe

We all have a Thing That We Can Cook, even if you're not someone who is particularly culinarily minded. If you're really good at doing omelettes or fried eggs or bacon sandwiches, that 100% counts; even a cheese toastie can be your one Thing That You Can Cook really well.

For me, it's a chilli con carne. This was one of the first things my mother taught me to make, and wrote, by hand, in a little red notebook that she gave me to take to university with a bunch of her recipes. My mum is a good cook, though to my shame I only cooked a few of the things in that little red book, and I'm not entirely sure where it eventually ended up.

Anyway, my Flawless Every Time (Unless You Burn It) Chilli con Carne recipe is probably loosely based on what my mother taught me, but it's been adapted and refined over the course of probably the last ten years or so in particular. So I thought I would share it with you today. You may note the absence of some ingredients such as onions and garlic; I don't put onions in 'cause I don't like them, and I don't put garlic in because I don't think it's necessary. Aside from that, this should be fairly as-you-expect, but read on anyway:

Ingredients

• 500g minced beef. If you're trying to be vaguely healthy, go for the 5% fat option. It works just fine.
• 1 x 400g can of kidney beans in chilli sauce
• 1 x 400g can of chopped tomatoes
• 1-2 teaspoons of red chillies in a jar (or you can use fresh if you can be arsed)
• 1-2 teaspoons of chipotle paste
• 1 teaspoon of cumin
• 1 teaspoon of paprika
• 2 teaspoons of smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon of chilli powder
• Pinch of salt and black pepper
• Rice to serve

Method

1. Mix all the spices together in a little bowl and set them to one side.
2. Begin frying the minced beef in a little oil. When it starts to brown, dump in the spice mix and stir well so the beef is nicely coated in it. It should go from grey-brown to having a nice red-orange tint.
3. When most of the red of the beef has turned brown add the chillies and stir well.
4. After 1-2 minutes, add the chipotle paste and stir well again.
5. After 1-2 minutes, add the kidney beans and sauce and stir well yet again.
6. After another 1-2 minutes, add the chopped tomatoes and stir well.
7. Once everything is mixed together nicely, lower the heat a bit and simmer for about 20 minutes.
8. While the chilli is cooking, cook the rice. If you're using a rice cooker, allow about 1.5 cups of rice for 2 people and add about 3 cups of water. Use the rice paddle to agitate the rice off the bottom of the rice cooker to minimise it burning/toasting on the bottom.
9. Serve.

Easy, right? The only way you can feasibly fuck this up is if you forget to turn the heat down a bit and you burn the damn thing. You can optionally tweak it a bit, also; add 2 tins of tomatoes and simmer for twice as long for a richer sauce, but if you can't be arsed to wait that long, this method makes a nicely flavourful, spicy and probably not-at-all authentic chilli con carne with ingredients you can easily find on supermarket shelves.

Gourmet? God no. But it is tasty and comforting. And that's what you want from a quick and easy meal, right?

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