Recipe - Mrs Owens Cook Book Chili (1880)

Lean beef; cut in small dice
Oil
Onions
1 Clove garlic; chopped fine
1 tablespoon Flour
2 tablespoon Espagnole
1 teaspoon Ground oregano
1 teaspoon Ground cumin
1 teaspoon Ground coriander
Dried whole peppers
Cooked beans

This may be the earliest printed recipe for chili con carne and it is
surprisingly authentic, save for the suspect addition of "espagnole", white
sauce seasoned with hame, carrot, onion, celery, and clove. The words are
Mrs. Owen's own.

This might be called the national dish of Mexico. Literally, it means
'pepper with meat' and when prepared to suit the taste of the average
Mexican, is not misnamed. Take lean beef and cut in small dice, put to cook
with a little oil. When well braised, add some onions, a clove of garlic
chopped fine and one tablespoon flour. Mix and cover with water or stock
and two tablespoons espagnole, 1 teaspoon each of ground oregano, camino,
and coriander. The latter can be purchased at any drug store. Take dried
whole peppers and remove the seeds, cover with water and put to boil and
when thoroughly cooked pass through a fine strainer. Add sufficient puree
to the stew to make it good and hot, and salt to taste. To be served with a
border of Mexican beans (frijoles), well cooked in salted water.

Frijoles or Mexican brown beans. Boil beans in an earthen vessel until soft
(four to eight hours). Mash and put them into a frying pan of very hot lard
and fry until comparatively dry and light brown. Sometimes chopped onions
are put into the lard before the beans are added and sometimes pods of red
pepper or grated cheese.
Posted to MCRecipe Digest V1 #168

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 19:39:47 0700

From: Garry Howard g.howard@ix.netcom.com
NOTES : MasterCook formatted by Garry Howard, Cambridge, MA
g.howard@ix.netcom.com
From the article "Just Another Bowl of Texas Red" by John Thorne
in the September/October 1990 issue of Chile Pepper Magazine.