Preparation

1. Boil a small pot of water. Once the water is boiling, drop a tomato in and pull it out after ten seconds; you should then be able to slice the skins with a knife and easily remove them. Chop the tomatoes into 1/2 inch chunks, removing the seeds but retaining all the liquid. Pour the tomato chunks and liquid into a saucepan, add the bay leaf and salt, and simmer for 50 minutes, stirring frequently.
2. While the tomatoes are simmering, you can prep the rest of the chili. Chop the onion into large chunks and puree it in a food processor along with the garlic cloves and coriander seeds. 20 minutes before the tomatoes are done simmering, add the oil to a dutch oven and heat it on medium heat for a few minutes. Next, add your onion/garlic/coriander mixture, and then add the cumin, red pepper flakes, cayenne pepper, oregano, paprika, and black pepper. Sauté the mixture on medium for about 10 minutes.
3. Next, break the ground beef into chunks and add it to your mixture, turning the heat up to medium-high heat. Cook the ground beef, stirring constantly to make sure it doesn’t clump. As soon as the pink is gone from the meat, add your tomatoes (remove the bay leaf), the can of tomato puree and the two cans of kidney beans. Stir it all together, allow it to boil ever so slightly, reduce the heat to low and cover it. Simmer it for one hour with the lid on. In a separate pan, cook the bacon pieces until they are mostly crispy and add them to the chili. Stir the chili every 10 minutes.
4. After one hour, remove the lid and stir in the cocoa powder. Simmer the chili for one more hour, uncovered, stirring every ten minutes. Ten minutes before the hour is over, stir in the mayonnaise. At the end of the hour, taste the chili for spiciness. If you want it more spicy, add cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes. To reduce spiciness, add something sweet like honey, maple sugar, or coconut palm sugar