Recipe for Chilli con Carne

This recipe for Chilli con Carne has to be the simplest, tastiest recipe I have made. It is pretty versatile and you can also add your favorite spices and flavors to suit.

This recipe started as I had 4 onions that I had sliced for a BBQ the night before, however, we had forgotten to cook the onions so I had a stack of onions and some mince. Those two ingredients morphed into a recipe for Chilli con Carne.

Ingredients:

500g lean minced beef

1 tblspn Olive Oil

One (or 4!) large onion, sliced

About 4 cloves of garlic finely chopped or crushed

One medium sized carrot. Half grated or finely chopped

One green pepper and one red pepper, sliced ½ inch thick

Either fresh chilli/es finely chopped or dried chilli flakes to taste

3 tablespoons of ground cumin

¼ teaspoon fresh lemon juice (the lemon cuts through the acidity of the tomatoes and makes them taste fresher)

1 can of diced tomatoes

1 large can kidney beans

Freshly ground salt and black pepper to taste

1 cup of water and two beef stock cubes

Method:

Heat a heavy based frying pan and using half the olive oil, heat until ready, then add half the onions and cook until golden and slightly caramelized. Repeat with remaining oil and onions.

In the same pan fry the mince in 2 batches until cooked

Return the first batch of mince to the pan together with the onions.

Add the carrots and peppers and fry until soft (about 1 minutes)

Add the garlic and cook for a further minute, I like to add the garlic about half way through for this recipe for chilli con carne so it doesn’t burn and easily infused through the other ingredients.

Add cumin and chilli and stir through the mixture, followed by the tomatoes, kidney beans, stock cubes and water, stir thoroughly

Leave to simmer for about 30 minutes stirring occasionally

At this stage this is ready to eat, or you can let it bubble away until you are ready to eat it later.

You can either serve with rice or as I did with guacamole a light sour cream and natural flavoured corn chips