Cooking with Platypus - Winter Warmer Series 1: Chilli

[platypus]

I thought I'd do a series of recipes that I consider good winter food. These are hearty, filling meals, that warm you right down to your cockles. It helps that I have a chest freezer full of locally raised free range Angus Aberdeen Beef and Gloucester Old spot we bought ourselves as a Christmas present! So I'll be doing a series of beef/pork dishes, and maybe a few others.

Feel free to request anything if you fancy it, and I will endeavour to get the better camera out and get some half decent shots (not this time though ).

Episode 1 - A Hot Chilli
Who doesn't love a good chilli? And its so easy to make that its one of my favourites. When using a good lean beef and a myriad combination of ingredients this can be sweet, warming or plain just knock your socks off. This is my take on this surely ubiquitously loved dish, I find it fairly hot - YMMV.

This recipe will make enough to serve 8-10 people. I'm making enough to freeze .

Ingredients

• 1KG good lean minced beef
• 2 birdseye chillis*
• 2 tbsps olive oil
• 2 large onions
• 1 large orange pepper
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp hot chilli powder
• 1 tsp mild chilli powder**
• 2 tbsp paprika
• 400g chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 cube beef stock
• 400g red kidney beans
• 2 tbsp ground black pepper corns
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 2 squares dark chocolate***
• Rice for however many you wish to serve.

*Seeds left in or taken out, depending on your heat preferences!
**Why hot and mild? Because they bring different flavours to the chilli.
***I use green and blacks because it mixes and melts really well, and I like it .

Method
Preparation is about 15 minutes, cooking time about an hour.

Prepare the vegetables, dicing them finely and remembering to de-seed the chillis if desired.

Heat the oil in a deep pan on a medium light, and then add the onions and garlic. Stir them until they start to turn, if they go brown however the heat is too high. This will take about 5 minutes.

Add the pepper, chilli, powders, paprika, ground cumin and ground pepper corns. Stir vigorously and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Add the mince, using a spoon to break it up, and turn the heat up. Fry until brown.

Once the beef is brown, make up 500ml of stock, and add this along with the chopped tomatoes and puree.

Bring to the boil, and then simmer for 20 minutes with the pan lid on, but stir regularly.

Drain and add the kidney beans, and at this point put your rice on.

I won't teach people how to boil rice (unless you really want me too!), but I find perfect fluffy rice takes 20 minutes, so these times are perfect.

Bring to the boil and let bubble with the lid off for ten minutes. Add the dark chocolate, and stir in.

Turn the heat off and allow the chilli to stand for 10 minutes, by which point your rice will be ready .

Serve with something chilled and enjoy .

 

[platypus]

Good idea for a thread Platypus!

What cuts of pork do you have in the freezer? Would be interested in devising some pork recipies as I love pork but rarely cook with it...

I have Shoulder joint, collar steak, spare rib, belly joint, leg joint, rib chops and bacon. Let me know if you fancy any of those in a platypus recipe .

Interesting. Some unusual choices of ingredients, cooking methods and techniques in there. Overall result wouldn't necessarily be to my usual tastes, but I daresay it went down a treat with its chosen recipients and I'd probably polish the lot off myself.

What made you decide on using lean minced beef for this recipe over something a little coarser? Was that how it came from your supplier, or is it personal preference?

Still on the beef, how come you chose to brown it all in with the veg instead of doing it in separate batches and then adding it all together? Does that even work? Seems like you'd end up steaming it all rather than actually getting some colour on the meat?

And last question fior now - is this your standard version of a chili or do you have a more complicated version? Seems like an awfully short cooking time for a chili to me, but I appreciate that everyone has their own tastes and don't always have the luxury of spending hours cooking dinner!

In all honesty I would call myself a pretty crap cook. I know what flavours I like, and how to get certain end product but my techniques are probably rubbish and my presentation is usually awful! Please do add your method/techniques as I'd love to learn a better way of doing them.

I use lean mince beef because I prefer the taste, that simple. Yes thats how it came from the supplier but its what I ordered.

I do it all with the veg because in my limited experience it produces better flavours - could be wrong/imagining it. It's how I've always done it.

It's my standard recipe, but I would normally cook it longer on a lower temperature - this is purely a recipe for doing after a busy day at work .

 

[platypus]

I'd beg to differ on your initial statement - you seem a perfectly capable cook, and even that would appear to be doing you an injustice.

Very kind .

And technique is technique; you're not doing anything dangerous and I don't see anything that I'd say was wrong, merely a few steps here and there that I'd do differently, that's all.

I notice that you don't appear to drain the excess fat away from the mince when you're cooking it - would it be this that puts you off the coarser-ground meat with the higher fat content, or is it something else?

Now that you mention it, it might well be. Perhaps if I adopt your method above I might have a better experience - why do you prefer coarser ground meat? Better flavour?

It's probably personal preference here, as you do seem to be getting some colour on the meat in the accompanying photos, but I prefer to brown my meat (no laughing at the back) in a separate pan, drain the fat off and then add that to the rest of the base ingredients.

It'd be interesting to compare results and see which works out better - I can certainly see the mileage in your method, especially if one was limited in both time and available equipment.

Yep - no issues with browning the meat if you wack the heat up.

As I thought - seems like a perfectly scrumptious after-work meal to me![/QUOTE]It was .

Shoulder and Belly please Platypus

Right you are, I shall see what I can do - I'm aiming for a sort of once weekly type series .

 

[platypus]

nst that version sounds amazing. That will be my next chilli!