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Chili Con Carne
2 MEDIUM ONIONS I GREEN PEPPER, SEEDED 3 TABLESPOONS SUET 2 POUNDS RUMP STEAK, IN 12 INCH CUBES 3 CUPS BOILING WATER I CUP SIEVED CANNED TOMATOES 3 TABLESPOONS CHILI POWDER 1/4 CUP COLD WATER 1/2 TEASPOON SALT 2 TEASPOONS SUGAR 3 CLOVES GARLIC, MINCED FINE I CAN BAKED KIDNEY BEANS Peel and slice onions and green pepper. Cook very slowly in fat in a covered kettle; when onions are soft, add meat and cook uncovered until it starts to sizzle and brown. Have ready boiling water to which sieved tomato has been added. Mix chili powder to smooth paste in cold water and pour into kettle with tomato liquid just as soon as meat starts frying. Add salt, sugar and garlic. Cook slowly until meat is tender. Add a little hot water if mixture thickens before meat is done. Add baked kidney beans last and be sure to heat them all the way through.
This is not one of the easiest chili recipes, but it's certainly one of the best. “Come, hombre, and just tuck a bowl of chili 'neath your belt a bowl of chili that'll warm you through and through." •
A straightforward braise built on cubed steak rather than ground beef, with the chili powder bloomed in water instead of fat. The list of ingredients reads oddly in places, but the method is sound and the proportions work.
- Meat sizeThe cubes should be about half an inch; the printed dimension has lost its fraction. The recipe gives no timing, only "cook slowly until meat is tender"; cut that small, rump will usually get there in about an hour of gentle simmering.
- SuetThree tablespoons of beef suet can be replaced with rendered beef fat, lard or a neutral oil. Suet sets firm and gives a slightly waxier mouthfeel when the chili cools.
- Chili powderThree tablespoons of mid-century chili powder means the mild blended kind (ground chiles plus cumin, oregano and salt), not pure cayenne or pure ancho. Modern blends vary considerably in heat, so add two tablespoons, taste when the meat is nearly done, and adjust.
- The paste stepMixing the powder with cold water before it goes into the pot helps it disperse. Dry powder dropped straight into hot liquid tends to clump and can catch on the bottom of the kettle.
- Sieved canned tomatoesUse tomato passata or canned tomatoes pushed through a strainer. Tomato sauce works; tomato puree or paste is too concentrated at a full cup.
- Baked kidney beansCanned baked kidney beans in tomato sauce are hard to find now. A 15-oz can of plain kidney beans, drained, is the closest equivalent; if you want the sweetness the original beans carried, that is what the two teaspoons of sugar are already doing.
- Heat, not simmer, at the endThe instruction to heat the beans through matters because they go in fully cooked. Prolonged boiling after they are added breaks them down into mush.
- YieldTwo pounds of meat plus a can of beans serves six generously, or four with second helpings. It reheats better the next day.