Chili ended up tasting like indian food

Normally I'd post this as a comment, rather than an answer, but it's getting a bit long. The problem is, this is conjecture.

---

I'm guessing it's the cloves, coriander, and/or anise that might be throwing off the flavors towards Indian. You have a few options : (1) make it so so spicy that no one wants to actually eat large amounts of it, (2) smother the flavor with something else. Unfortunately, chili is so strongly flavored, this can be difficult, or (3) try to meld the flavors more.

Letting the chili sit overnight will help with #3, but you can also add more alcohol and let it cook down. Instead of going with a neutral alcohol like the recipe calls for, I'd add beer or hard cider. For more of #2, I'd also be inclined to add more tomato paste ... it might help to smother some of the stronger flavors.

You might also have to serve it with cheese & sour cream.

Unfotunately from experience, the one time I really screwed up a batch of chili, I tried all sorts of things, and the only way to save it was to eat it lukewarm (which kept you from noticing all of the flavors), but with lots of hot sauce (which kept you from noticing it was lukewarm, and covered up the flavor).

When you use a recipe that describes Rajma Masala with added pieces of beef and fish more than a conventional chili... from an author that tends to defy conventional wisodm with recipes that are innovative and great at the price of the recipe being idiosyncratic, fragile, and unforgiving of errors, you might end up with Rajma Masala with added pieces of beef and fish. The whole spices in his picture are half a garam masala - toasted like you would in Indian cooking, to boot.

And then:

"Add chile puree and cook, stirring frequently and scraping bottom of pot until chile mixture begins to fry and leaves a coating on bottom of pan"

The "chile puree" is a recipe step that has spices and tomato paste in it. And is added on top of thoroughly cooked onions and ... fried. Frying tomato paste off is not unheard of, but in that context ... a masala waiting to happen.

Add a cup of cold espresso or strong coffee. Honestly. It will give you that seared (minced) meat taste that this recipe chose to forego for the fluffy dutch oven preparation. It will not change the other spice tones, but the general impression and taste. I understand you might be worried. Try it with a bit first. You will like it!

I'm years late with this answer… but to point it squarely at "Mexico" rather than "India" add chipotle [or at a push smoked paprika], masa harina and make sure you use real Mexican not European oregano. The two plants are not even closely related. You can add Mexican on top of European late in a dish & it will subtly change the profile.

There is absolutely no element of smokey chilli & masa harina that could vaguely be mis-interpreted as "Indian".