Ok, here it is:

Not as you perhaps might have hoped - the definitive - easy to follow guide to the perfect chilli but more a series of pointers and guidelines that will help you along the long and winding road that leads to Chilli like we make it here.

It's the one you all talk about - the most requested recipe from my entire repertoire! (or perhaps no-one has asked for any other!)

You shall be mostly needing the following stuff:

Onions
Fresh Chillis from the garden (or your stash in the freezer)
Garlic, or Garlic Puree
Fresh Mince (get it from H.H.Treagust in the square Emsworth - on NO account use that frozen rubbish!)
Oxo Cubes
Plenty of tinned chopped tomatoes (go as cheap as you like)
Plenty of tinned kidney beans (again, Tescos value beans work well here)
Secret ingredient: Home made Fig Chutney, home made Green Tomato Chutney or any 'pickle', Heinz Tomato Ketchup

Method:

Slice the onions and and fry them off.
At around the same time slice the chillis up nice and thin and add to the onions.
Also add the garlic at this time.
Whilst this is going on, fry the mince in some olive oil until cooked (no sign of pink bits!)
Get a large casserole dish or similar, add the fried onion/chilli/garlic mixture then add the mince.
Keep the heat on whilst you add a couple of Oxo cubes and usually about 4 tins of the chopped tomatoes.
At this time you can 'adjust' the seasoning to your taste, I usually add a little salt, sometimes some more garlic, maybe some freshly ground black pepper and usually some more chillis. (you can use chilli powder at this point to add heat but I find that fresh chillis provide a 'cleaner' taste which is why I don't use it for the bulk of the recipe).

Note: If it is not hot enough, add more chilli, if it is too hot - send out for some soured cream to serve with it!

Also, this is the time where the secret ingredient is added! Several dollops of the chutney as well as a good squirt of the tomato ketchup.
Now pop in about 4 tins of kidney beans and cook on the hob for about 40 mins.
In an ideal situation, make this a day in advance, leave to cool overnight and re-heat the next day.

Consume, served with rice or tortillas. Sometimes I make mountains of tortillas/chilli/grated cheddar/sliced pickled chillis which (once assembled) is zapped in the microwave to melt the cheese.

You can see that this recipe is geared around making a massive chilli - this is intentional as it allows many portions to be saved (using the old plastic takeaway dishes) and frozen for later consumption.