Chili Con Carne for Today

I haven’t tried this recipe yet and it was timely since I have minced beef in the fridge and some ingredients which will complete my recipe. I have heard this recipe long time back and I know that it originated in Mexico. I don’t know about how chili this recipe can be, probably depending upon the taste of the cook.

Yummy Chili Con Carne



I thought I may serve this recipe using only red beans, but since I don’t have, I will improvise using chick peas. Now the question is how long will I be able to finish this recipe? I need to soak the chickpea and use the pressure cooker to keep it soft before I include it in the mince beef.

About the spices that I am trying to use, I have chili powder, cumin powder and turmeric instead of paprika. As much as possible I will be using fresh tomatoes into this recipe and not the canned tomato puree. I will just need to blanch the tomatoes and peel it off and then put it in a blender so that I can have my very own tomato puree.

A closer look at chili con carne



Whew, next step is to check my other ingredients, which are bay leaf, cinnamon stick and oregano powder. I can also include dried thyme but I don’t have it for now so I will be skipping on that. All I needed to do is to cook the minced beef in pan till it gets brown before I include the tomato puree, some sliced onions and garlic and then my powdered ingredients.

I also use some tomato ketchup in this recipe to keep it tasting a bit sweet but not too much. As much as possible I wanted to balance the taste of chili, salty and sweetness of my chili con carne recipe. You may include red wine into this recipe if you have to keep the meat tender, but not too much of alcohol content. This is just an option, if you don’t have any red wine to use, then skip it, no problem if the taste will be different or not.

Steamy hot goodness of chili con carne


Once your minced beef is done and mixed with tomato puree and powdered spices, you can now put some beef bouillon or beef stock into it, just not too much for the mince beef to swim. Simmer it till the flavor seeps into the beef and then add the chickpea that you set aside earlier. If you have red beans their okay too as long as you cooked it well before adding it in this mixture. It took me 20 minutes using the pressure cooker to soften the chickpea, so the total hours of preparing this dish will be more than an hour. If you are not in a hurry to prepare your meal, you can definitely try this.

Don’t forget to put ample amount of salt and ground black pepper to taste. If you still want it to be sweeter, you can add course brown sugar, but if not then just leave it as is. Your Chili Con carne will be perfect to match with hot rice or bread and some hot soup. You can also garnish your plate with some plain yogurt to mix with this wonderful dish. Until then and hope you will also try this delicious recipe.

Elongated Capsicum with minced Beef

Elongated Capsicum with Minced Beef

I was able to buy minced beef and marinated it with soy sauce, salt and black ground pepper and masala. Fried it till it was crispy enough and then the next thing I did was to fry the green peppers. It was really oily and I still opted to grill the capsicum instead of frying it, but we don't have any grill so I landed on frying it.



It was really spattering so just be careful of placing it on hot oil for frying. What is best is that when you fry such veggie, you should have a napkin to drain the remaining oil before serving. I don't have it at the moment I prepared the dish so it looks oily as it can be when clicked on a cam.

It is good to pair it with chapatti or flat bread. Since you can wrap it like a mexican dish. Anyway, if you wanted to know how to prepare chapatti or roti, I will post a recipe here so you can start cooking and preparing your own flat bread which by the way is made out of wheat flour.

Green Capsicum with Minced Beef, Chapatti and Chicken Biryani


I didn't prepare that Chicken Biryani that you can see on the picture. We bought it outside to eat along with what I prepared. It was a night of relaxation and off days are meant to be special for us( hubby and I) so I paired it with this dish. It is better if you eat your green capsicum wrapped in chappatti. It was surely great since it absorbs the extra oil that was on the veggie, made perfectly for each other.

Wrap your chappati around the green capsicum to hold the minced beef inside