The big chilli

This is all about help yourself. Set up a self-serve area with a big pan of chilli, a big bowl of plain rice, sour cream, grated cheese, chopped red or spring onions, corn chips, greens, lemon or lime wedges, bowls, forks, and paper napkins. Then score the best seat in the house while your guests make their own combos. Makes enough for 20.

Ingredients

6	Onions
½ cup	Oil
3 kgs	Beef mince
1 kg	Beef sausage (Main)
400 g	Tomato paste
1 Tbsp	Ground black pepper
3 Tbsp	Crushed garlic
5 Tbsp	Ground cumin
6 Tbsp	Chilli powder, medium spice
¼ cup	Dijon mustard
2 Tbsp	Salt
3 Tbsp	Dried basil
3 Tbsp	Dried oregano
4 cans	Chopped tomatoes
3 cans	Red kidney beans
2	Lemons
½ cup	Fresh parsley, chopped
½ cup	Dry red wine, optional
½ cup	Pitted black olives, optional

Directions

1. In a large pot cook finely chopped onions in olive oil.
2. Take the skin off beef sausages ( I used Angus Pure), crumble this into the onions, add beef mince and brown off the mixture. A potato masher can be useful here to break up the sausage meat.
3. Turn down the heat. Stir in ground black pepper, tomato paste, minced garlic, ground cumin, med chilli powder, Dijon mustard, salt, dried basil and dried oregano.
4. Add drained chopped tomatoes, drained kidney beans, the zest and juice of 2 lemons, chopped parsley and red wine (optional). Stir well and cook uncovered for 30 minutes.
5. Taste to check seasoning. If you like, you can add chopped pitted black olives at the end. Keep warm until ready to serve but this can easily be made ahead of time and reheated.