Well, a chili con carne in the most traditional sense would be hot peppers and ground beef with a bit of onion and cumin in. But that gets a bit boring after a while.
Beef about 150-200g of mince/chopped beef (no bigger than thumbnail chunks ideally and not too lean) per person generally. I like to put in about 300g because I can eat chili until I burst. Bit of fine chopped/blended liver if you want to up the richness, hard to spot if you make it veh hot though.
Onion (fist sized onion for 3/4 peeps)
2/3 cloves garlic
Tin of (chopped) tomato (you can smash them with a fork in the tin if you don't buy them chopped, be careful though or you'll get the juice everywhere)
Cumin, smoked paprika, salt and pepper. (I generally put a few pinches on the raw meat just as it goes in the frying pan, and a few more after it's started simmering in the sauce pan.)
Chili! Red, green, yellow, whatever colour you can get. Some nice big mild ones like habaneros to cut big and colour the dish, some mean ones like scotch bonnets or bird eye to give it the heat. Want to die by fire? Try the naga chili, for less death apply momentarily to sauce, then remove.
Other bits - stock cube, Jack Daniels, sour cream.
Chop everything finely except a few milder chilis, cut them in big bits or leave them whole.
In heavy bottom pan* put the tin of tomato, put your stock cube in the tin, three quarters full from the boiled kettle, throw it in the pan too. Bring to simmer.
Put a kettle of water on.
Beef, finely chopped onion, garlic, oil into pan, brown it and throw a bit of the spice/seasoning over. If you want extra front of mouth heat, put some big bits of chili in here as well.
Scrape beef and bits into heavy bottom pan, de glaze frying pan with splash of jack, pour that in the heavy pan. Put frying pan in water now to save cleaning.
Rest of spices to adjust flavour. Simmer more until super thick, this could be left very low for half a day if need be. Occasional dab of water in if it's gone too thick too early.
Sour cream dollop on top when ready. Apply to rice.
Eat.
I do use beans in mine. Either baked beans or kidney, but when I do it's for on nacho's and is covered in cream and guacamole, needs extra in it for filling the consumer.
*Why the J-Lo? It allows for a more controllable and sustainable heat to be spread through the entire mixture, no sticking or hotspots to burn it. A LeCreuset is a tad expensive but worth it for things like this.
Also, as the name implies, get a slow-cooker. Got mine for a tenner from Tescos.
