This classic Tex-Mex dish has become universal
ingredients for 4 servings (cost about 5 € pp)
- 150 g chickpeas (NOT canned)
- 150 g black or red beans (NOT canned)
- 400 g beef minced meat
- 50 g bacon in small dice
- A tin of tomatoes
- 2 large onions
- 2 large carrots
- 2 chilli peppers
- 1,5 l vegetable (or even better jamón) stock
- Salt
- EV Olive oil
- 1 tsp freshly ground cumin
- 1 tsp freshly ground coriander
- 1 tsp paprika de la Vera
- 1/2 red pepper
- chopped coriander or parsley
First of all, the most important. If you cannot find black or red beans, DO NOT BUY canned ones. You can prepare this dish with any kind of beans, the variety is not crucial. Canned beans will make the dish disgusting, like those that the “cook” of Eli Wallach´s gang on Sergio Leone´s movies used to prepare.
On the other hand, the crucial points are:
a) The perfect boiling of the beans and chickpeas. Beans must remain whole and they should not overcooked (otherwise the colour of our chilli will be awful). Chickpeas must be very soft and they should have the same consistency as the beans.
b) The stock. I know, someone can tell me that in the Far West no stock was used. So what? Every cook should always try to make each dish better, without altering, of course, its character. So, a chilli con carne made with stock is much better than one made with water. But beware, “Angel Eyes”, the bounty hunter from “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” is gonna kill you if you use the garbage called readymade stock. And he will be right.
c) This is the first time I propose the use of bacon, as the vast majority of them are industrial and tasteless. Try to find a very good one, this is gonna give the umami to the dish, otherwise find a very good smoked pancetta.
d) The spices. My strong advise it to buy whole spices and to grind them just before using them. So, whole cumin and whole coriander. Don´t forget to “activate” your spices in hot (not too hot) fat, but beware not to burn them, they are very sensitive.
We already know how to prepare beans. We soak them all night long in filtered or mineral water, we boil them for 15 mins and we discard the “first” boiling water for digestion purposes. We then simmer them wrapped with the special net till very tender in salted filtered or mineral water. This way the beans maintain their shape and they keep the whole preparation clear, as they don´t “burst”.
2 more things:
a) We never cook together different kinds of beans, as eachone has its own cooking time
b) We never use beans cooking water as a soup liquid, because it provokes digestion problems
I remind you that dried chickpeas can be cooked without soaking, but the cooking time will be too long. Soaking the chickpeas for 8 to 12 hours in mineral water reduces drastically the cooking time. If the soaking water is salty or sparkling, the time needed is even inferior but the result will not be equally good.
So, we decide how long to soak the chickpeas, according to our available time and we then boil them in salty (mineral or filtered) boiling water till very tender, having in mind that the water must be always very hot during cooking.
We discard the water after about 15 minutes of boiling (in order to avoid digestion problems) and we transfer the chickpeas to another pot with boiling water. If we have to add more water to the pot, it must be boiling too. Baking soda is not recommended, as it turns the chickpeas unpleasant.
Our chilli con carne is almost ready.
We boil the carrots, after cleaning, peeling and cutting them in slices and we cut, slice and boil the onions.
Meanwhile, in a third pot (– Fuck you cook, who is gonna wash all these pots? – Angel Eyes, shoot this bastard!) we gently fry in olive oil, the bacon, the minced meat, the spices and the hot chilli peppers.
We add the tomatoes, cut in pieces, the stock and salt and we let simmer till the meat becomes very tender.
When the meat is ready, we reduce the stock (if need) till the desired point. We must create a thick soup. We add the vegetables, the beans and the chickpeas, we recheck the saltiness and we serve garnishing with tiny dice of red pepper and fresh coriander.
