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Chilli Con Carni
2 lbs. round steak I oz. (I heaping tablespoonful) butter 3 dry red peppers 4 red chillies 3 tablespoonfuls rice Salt ½ pint (1 cup) boiling water 2 large onions 1/4 teaspoonful powdered thyme 1 tablespoonful flour 3 cloves 1 cupful cooked beans 1 clove garlic Cut the steak into small pieces. Put the butter into a casserole and allow it to get hot, then add the
The text as printed breaks off mid-sentence, so the method has to be reconstructed from the ingredient list and from how casserole cookery of the period worked. Everything here is a single-pot braise: brown the meat in the butter, sweat the onion and garlic, add the flour, then the liquid, aromatics and rice, and let it go slowly until the beef is tender.
- The vesselA "casserole" in a book of this date means a lidded earthenware or fireproof pot used on the stovetop as well as in the oven, not a shallow baking dish. A Dutch oven or heavy enamelled pot is the direct equivalent.
- The water measureThe text reads ½ pint (1 cup) of boiling water, which matches the printed page. With 2 lb of beef, 3 tablespoons of rice and a slow braise you may well need more liquid than that — add water or stock as it cooks so the meat stays barely covered.
- Two kinds of pepper"3 dry red peppers" are whole dried pods, most likely ancho or a mild New Mexico type, softened in hot water and used for body and colour. "4 red chillies" are the hot element. Modern dried chiles vary enormously in heat, so seed them and taste as you go rather than trusting the count.
- Cut of meatRound steak is lean and needs long, moist cooking. Cut it into small pieces and allow at least 1½ to 2 hours at a bare simmer before it gives up; the recipe gives no oven direction. Chuck will produce a better result in less time if you are not bound to the original.
- The rice and the beansThree tablespoons of raw rice is a thickener as much as a starch; it will dissolve into the sauce over a long braise. The beans go in already cooked and should be added near the end so they do not break up.
- Whole clovesThree cloves is assertive in a dish this size. Add them whole so they can be fished out, and do not substitute ground clove measure for measure.
- Flour and butterThe tablespoon of flour is meant to be stirred into the hot butter and meat juices before the liquid goes in. Let it cook a minute so the sauce does not taste pasty.
- YieldServes four to six with bread or more rice alongside. Like most braises it is usually reckoned better on the second day.
Chili con carne — Spanish for "chili with meat," here spelled in one of the many phonetic variants that circulated in early twentieth-century English cookbooks — reached general American cookery from San Antonio, where the so-called chili queens sold it from open-air stalls in the plazas from the 1880s onward, and from the chili powders and canned versions that carried it beyond Texas, a spread often traced to the 1893 Chicago world's fair. Purists in Texas are often said to have argued against the beans, though the debate is documented mainly from the mid-twentieth century; their presence here, along with the rice, thyme and cloves, shows a regional dish already being naturalised for northern kitchens working from a general-purpose cookbook.