John Gambill's Four Meat Texas Chili Con Carne

From: Marysdottir

On Apr 23, 2009

My family loved this. My husband even decided to make it to take to his weekly lunch at work. Very high praise. Is wonderfully tasty even if you break down and add some beans. I think the beer, coffee and cocoa really add depth. Not too hot for any of us - in fact, I added some chipotle in adobo sauce when I reheated it.

From: linyee yuan

On Oct 18, 2008

ive made this recipe for multiple people over the last 6 years! is a true crowd pleaser!

From: Mareesme

On May 16, 2007

Time consuming, uses up all sorts of bowls and pans so clean up took longer, expensive if you don't have all ingredients at home but --DELICIOUS...THE BEST!! This is a lot of work but well worth it when cooking for real chili fans. Not for my usual quick chili meal, but I know I will be making it again and again for special times. I did use cut-up stew meat in place of ground beef, since cooking time allowed it to get very tender after browning. My only suggestion is to fry chorizo separately from the other meats because it took so much longer to brown and produced a lot more fat. I served it with all the fixin's John recommended, plus a bowl of ranch beans for those who wanted to throw some in their chili. People were in hog heaven. Can't wait to try it in a smoker.

From: Mark & Stacy

On Oct 20, 2007

WOW!! So yummy! I love meat and don't like beans, so this was the perfect chili for me. We didn't have exactly everything for it, so we improvised some. Ours became a 5 meat chili. We used stew meat instead of ground beef, as someone else suggested. It was wonderfully tender. We only had about 1 and a half pounds of that, so we used enough smoked sausage, with the casing removed, to get to the right amount of meat. For the peppers, we used one small yellow, and one small orange, each being half a cup. Used 2 jalapenos and 1 red banana pepper also. We only had light brown sugar, and we used about a half a tablespoon of celery seed in place of the celery flakes. We did thicken it with flour at the end. This was time consuming, but not too bad since I cut up all of the veggies and mixed the dry ingredients together the day before. Served with some extra sharp cheddar cheese on top and cornbread on the side. We got enough for my husband and I to get 4 dinners out of it. Froze some, so I hope that turns out well when thawed. A note about the jalapeno peppers - I was really good about washing my hands several times after and not touching my eyes and such, but I clearly wasn't thinking when I used my thumb to clean out the inside of the jalapenos. The skin under my thumbs burned for almost 2 days! I will be smarter next time! NOTE - This thawed just fine! We are making more today so we can have some in the freezer for when the mood strikes!