PinkPolkaDot

Chilli con carne is a wonderful one-pot dish.  It is known as THE campfire dish made by cowboys! To me it brings back memories of John Wayne, sitting all alone next to his campfire, (with his horse, of course) and opening a tin of beans and a tin of tomatoes and mixing it with some meat, to cook the perfect Chilli Con Carne!

I use to make Chilli Con Carne quite often in the 80’s. At that stage you could buy tinned Chilli beans, and I used that for my chilli con carne. I also used cubed beef and never minced meat. The recipe that I used at that stage was the following:Heat 1 tablespoon of oil and 1 tablespoon of butter in a pot on the stove. Brown 125g of cubed bacon, 500g cubed beef, 2 chopped onions and 2 cloves of garlic in the butter-oil mixture. Add 125ml water, 1 x 400g tin of chilli beans, 1 x 400g tin of whole peeled tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper and sauté very slowly for 2 hours.

For some or the other reason I stopped making this delicious dish when my children was young, firstly because I thought they should not eat chillies and secondly because I thought they won’t enjoy the beans.

Luckily VG asked me to make this about a year ago and now it serves regularly on our menu and even my son loves it! I have adapted the recipe completely and now use minced beef for this. This specific version is the chilli con carne, covered with some partially cooked sliced potatoes and baked in the oven! Real delicious winter food!

For the recipe, please go to PinkPolkaDotFood!