Scratch Built Elk Chili Big cast iron skillet Drizzle in some olive oil for frying. Add 1/2lb .. 1lb ground elk, start it frying. While this is browning in the pan, dice up 1 medium onion. Once the meat is about half done, add in the onion. Fry all this 'till the onion just starts to get "clear". Time for the spices: These are ordered in the amounts used. Largest first. Also, I've never measured these. It has always been a heap of chili powder. Less but still a lot of cumin. Healthy amount if black pepper. Some garlic fresh or powdered and a healthy sprinkling of cayenne pepper for heat. You'll need to figure out your own levels to suit your tastes here. That being said.. coat the entire thing with a dusting of chili powder. Not a thick blanket, but at least everything is uniform red color & powder texture. Add cumin powder. A lot if cumin powder. Maybe a third as much as the chili powder. Add black pepper. Sprinkle it in somewhat heavy. Maybe a half as much as the cumin. Garlic powder is next, unless you were fancy and added real garlic to your onions when you fried them. Add cayenne pepper. Not too much this sets your "heat" level. Mix this all together. The powders will absorb most of the liquid. Keep the mixture moist to at least the point of glistening by drizzling in more olive oil. Scrape everything over to one side of the pan. Drag the pan over, so the empty side is the pan is over the heat. (meat mix is cooling) Add a can of stewed tomatoes to the hotter empty side of the pan. Let the stewed tomatoes boil down while chopping them into bite size pieces in the pan. Once most if the liquid is boiled away from the stewed tomatoes, mix everything together. Turn this down to low. *** Secret ingredient *** Now add about a 1tbl .. 2tbl of sweet pickle relish. Mix this in. Ver important! Grab two cans of plain ol' pinto beans. Open them into a strainer and rinse off whatever liquid was on them. Flip them in the air a few times to get most of the water off of them. Dump these in the pan and mix them in. At this point you can adjust salt, pepper & cayenne pepper to taste. This is actually better, reheated the next day after all the flavors meld and mellow out. VERSION 2 EXTRA Add a pack of chicken sausage to the meat. Not one but two cans of Stewed tomatoes chopped up. TWO pickled habanero chilis. Three gets complains of to spicy. NO cayenne pepper About 1/4 cup diced pickled jalapeño peppers. You can add water later to adjust wetness. Tried it without the extra sausage pack. Was kinda' Meh. VERSION 3 - Fine tune Basically did version 1 but substituted sesame oil for olive oil. I doubt that made a big difference. Substituted one BIG clove of garlic for garlic powder. Dropped cayenne pepper for 2 finely chopped pickled habanero peppers. Cut way back on cumin. Added a dusting, one or two finger grabs of flour to thicken up the sauce. And added a couple finger grabs of sugar. Not enough to make it sweet, but just enough to cut the harshness and enable you to taste all the flavors of the chili. Worked well. 2019 HOLIDAY CHILI Started with the bones, drippings and left overs from 3..4 pork chops. Along with this we had a Christmas beef roast. I saved all the drippings from that and about a pound of left over meat. Christmas day I pressure cooked a cup of red beans in my new pressure cooker 25 min. Not enough time, next time lets try 30 minutes. Ok, beans and all the saved bones and drippings into a pot with some more water and let it reduce for awhile. Added salt 'till it tasted good. In large fry pan did the usual onions, garlic, pound of elk, 1/3 jar jalapeños, one habanero pepper, chili powder, cumin, salt pepper thing. I opened a can of Hunts tomato sauce by accident. In the end I added it in as well. I chopped the remaining roast beef into small cubes and added them in after everything had been fried. Once the meat was off the bones in the broth, I pulled them out and in a big pot added the broth/beans to the meat/onion mixture from the pan. I let the mixture simmer covered for about 45 minutes. Then added sugar 'till it mellowed out and you could start tasting all the different flavors. Julie said this version of chili was "Chili cook-off quality". That was extremely high praise from her! Next time? 2 cups beans. More pork chop bones and droppings. I doubt I'll be able to get beef drippings or leftovers. We don't eat much beef anymore. Need to do something about the can of tomato sauce.. QUICK CHILI (quite tasty!) Large iron pot. Chop up 2 med. onions. Two large garlic cloves crushed. 1/3 jar pickled jalapeño peppers chopped. One pickled habanero pepper chopped fine. Chili powder - A lot. Don't know how much really. Cumin - maybe a quarter as much as the chili powder? Drizzle in some olive oil and get this all frying. Once the onions are starting to get clear dump in your pound of ground elk meat. Fry everything together. When everything is close to being done frying, add in a drained and rinsed (Bushe's) can of red beans along with a drained and rinsed can of (Bushe's) pinto beans. Stir this al together. Now add in 1/2 small can of tomato paste, about 2 Tbl sweet pickle relish. Along with this add between 1/4..1 cup water to set your "gravy level". At this point adjust flavors with salt, pepper (lots) and sugar to mellow out the harsh tones and bring out the chili flavors. Let it sit for about 5 hr with the heat heat off fir the taste to meld & mellow. that's it!