Ground beef
Tomato soup (2 cans)
Tomato sauce (smallish can)
Kidney beans
Small white or navy beans
Black beans
Cumin
Chili powder
Onion flakes (optional)
Ground red pepper (optional)
Hot sauce (optional)
At the dawn of time, God came down from heaven to survey his creation. After taking a long, hard look, he said "Looks pretty good. Goddamn, I'm hungry... I sure could go for some chili." As far as God and I are concerned, there are two commandments that all chili must abide by:
I: Thou shalt include a metric shit-ton of protein
II: Thou shalt cook for a fucking long time
Chili isn't a fancy food. This is why I don't give my chili a fancy name. Most of the time, when people want you to try their grandmother's "One-of-a-Kind Three Alarm Firehouse Monster Chili" what they serve you isn't even chili. It's some sort of fucked up stew. The two chili commandments determine what can be included.
Why is other "Chili" Inferior?
It's simple, really. The people that make them are idiots. I've seen chili recipes that include corn, green beans, carrots, spaghetti noodles... the list goes on. These are inferior ingredients that don't jive with the cooking process, which goes by the technical phrase "slow as fuck". Slow cooking as a technique does NOT lend itself to the preparation of vegetables (they lose their taste, color, and nutritional content) or pasta (they get soggy as a bed sheet on a porn set). On the other hand, slow cooking does wonders with meat, especially low quality "fatty" meat (like hamburger). It's also the best way to cook beans, as it keeps the skin in tact while enriching the inherent flavor. Spice is very important, as it will permeate the proteins over the long cooking process. To hold this all together, we want a nice, thick base... and it gets no thicker than tomato sauce, which, as an added bonus, will pick up much of the spice.
Now that that shit is taken care of, let's make some motherfucking chili.
