Chilli con carne
This great chilli has to be one of the best dishes to friends for a casual get-together
Ingredients
Method
To serve
- Serve with soured cream and plain boiled long grain rice.
- Other ways to enjoy chilli: Serve it on a bed of plain, boiled rice, with a spoonful of soured cream on top. Pile it on tortilla chips and sprinkle it with grated cheddar. Wrap it up in a tortilla with shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes and guacamole for a great burrito
- A Mexican twist: Rather than add a teaspoon of sugar you can stir in a small piece of chocolate (about the size of your thumbnail) when you add the beans. Any plain dark chocolate will do. Be careful not to add too much – you don't want to be able to identify the flavour of the chocolate.
Preparation method
- Prepare your vegetables. Chop 1 large onion into small dice, about 5 mm square. The easiest way to do this is to cut the onion in half from root to tip, peel it and slice each half into thick matchsticks lengthways, not quite cutting all the way to the root end so they are still held together. Slice across the matchsticks into neat dices. Cut 1 red pepper in half lenghtways, remove stak and wash the seeds away, then chop. Peel and finaly chop 2 garlic
- Start cooking. Put your pan on the hob over a medium heat. Add the oil and leave it for 1-2 minutes until hot (a little longer for an electric hob). Add the onions and cook, stirring fairly frequent, for about 5 minutes, or until the onions are soft, squdgy and slightly translucent. Tip in the garlic, red pepper, 1 heaped tbsp. hot chilli powder or 1 level tbsp. mild chilli powder, 1 tsp. paprika and 1 tsp. ground cumin. Give it a good stir, then leave it to cook for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Brown the 500g lean minced meat. Turn the heat up a bit, add the meat to the pan and break it up with your spoon or spatula. The mix should sizzle a bit when you add the mince. Keep stirring and prodding for at least 5 minutes, until all the mince is uniform mince-sized lumps and there are no more pink bits. Make sure you keep the heat hot enough for the meat to fry and become brown, rather than just stew.
- Making the sauce. Crumble 1 beef stock cube into 300ml hot water. Pour this into the pan with the mince mixture. Open 1 can of chopped tomatoes (400g can) and add these as well. Tip ½tsp. dried marjoram and 1 tsp. sugar, if using (see Mexican twist under "To serve"), and add a good shake of salt and pepper. Squirt in about 2 tbsp tomato purée and stir the sauce well.
- Simmer it gently. Bring the whole thing to the boil, give it a good stir and put a lid on the pan. Turn down the heat until it is gently bubbling and leave to for 20 minutes. You should check on the pan occasionally to stir it and make sure that the sauce doesn't catch on the bottom of the pan or isn't drying out. If it is, add a couple of tablespoons of water and make sure that the heat really is low enough. After simmering gently, the sauce mince mixture should look thick, moist and juicy.
- Bring on the beans. Drain and rinse 1 can of red kidney beans (410g can) in a sieve and stir them into the chilli pot. Bring to the boil again, gently bubble without the lid for another 10 minutes, adding little more water if it looks too dry. Taste a bit of the chilli and season. It will probably take a lot more seasoning than you think. Now replace the lid, turn off the heat to stand for 10 minutes before serving, and relax. Leaving the chilli to stand is really important as it allows the flavours to mingle with the meat
Notes
