Starting what I think may become a theme, I have decided my first recipe should be my signature Chilli. I make no claims about authenticity, however I do know it’s extremely tasty.
Serves: 4 (generously).
Ingredients
- 1kg of minced beef
- 3 medium sized onions
- 2 bell peppers
- 1 Scotch Bonnet
- 3 large cloves of garlic
- 2 tins of chopped or peeled tomato
- 1 tin of kidney beans
- 1lt cafetiere of coffee
- Cumin (Jeera) powder
- Hot Chocolate powder
- 3tsp of Demerara Sugar
- 2 mugs full of rice
Method
Fry the mince with no oil
There are two things to note at this point: this recipe contains no oil and it does not use any salt. The salt I recommend people can add to taste once served, and the fat from the beef is used for frying the veg.
Put the minced beef in a large-bottomed pan. This should be fried on a medium heat until it has just about turned entirely brown. This should be stirred periodically to get it evenly fried all over and to make sure you do not burn the beef.
While this is frying, start chopping your onions, peppers and chilli. The onions should be diced, the peppers should be cut into strips and the scotch bonnet should be chopped up as finely as possible. Get the cloves of garlic and peel them ready for crushing. At this point also make a cafetiere of freshly ground coffee. Leave that to brew while you finish the frying.
Time to add the veg
When the mince has just turned brown, add the onions, peppers and chilli. Also crush the garlic straight into the pan, and mix it all in.
Now add some hot chocolate and jeera powder. I have not put a quantity because I just free-pour it. However, I recommend being incredibly generous. Don’t just give a little sprinkle and think “that will be fine”, because a chilli is a big, powerful dish you need to be liberal with it and add a lot of both. Also add the 3tsp of Demerara sugar.
Keep frying until the onion is soft and translucent.
Once fully fried, turn down the heat and add two cans of tomato. Try not to get any of the “tomato with x” cans, as you don’t want any contamination of the flavour. If you are using peeled tomato, make sure you chop it up with the spoon when you mix. Also open your can of kidney beans, drain the water and then throw them in.
Now plunge your cafetiere of coffee, and pour about half of it in.
add the coffee
With the other half of coffee, pour yourself a mug and drink it.
Once you’ve had a swig, stir your chilli. There will be plenty of liquid in there, but don’t worry about that as we will reduce it later. Put a lid on the pan and allow it to simmer on a low heat for at least 20 minutes (the longer the better really), stirring periodically.
Once it has been simmering for a bit, have a taste of it. At this point, if it doesn’t taste dark enough, add some extra chocolate powder, and if it doesn’t taste enough of Jeera, add some more Jeera powder. Now remove the lid, increase the heat slightly and allow the liquid to reduce. There should be no visible liquid, and be quite thick. This will make the taste more concentrated.
Finally wash 2 mugs of rice and boil it. Make sure that you don’t over boil the rice, as soon as the rice doesn’t crunch when you chew it, then it is done. Strain and serve.
Recommended drink: BrewDog 5am Saint
Enjoy!
I have just finished eating this fantastic chilli! It was bloody lovely and well worth giving a try.
I do not think I have ever had a chilli cooked with chocolate powder and coffee, so I was slightly dubious about how it would turn out. I gave it a shot and it is brilliant; My parents loved it, too! You should definitely follow Rick’s advice about not being shy with the cumin and chocolate powder. There is a lot of meat and flavoursome peppers in there, a sprinkle is going to do bugger all. Get stuck in!
My only negative was a single scotch bonnet did nothing. I could barely taste it. So I chucked in a second. It was better, but still could have done with a little more oomph. I didn’t have anymore to throw at it :(.
Now this may not be the recipe, this might be down to the chillies I used. I got my scotch bonnets from Sainsbury’s, which may mean they are not the best. Regardless of source they may have just been duds – though nibbling a few pieces when chopping it suggested it was plenty hot! I will have to try scotch bonnets in there from elsewhere and see if I can get more heat out of them.
That small quibble aside, this is a fantastic chilli and I order you to eat it.
Thanks for your kind comments! Yes, this is the problem with any chillis (not just scotch-bonnets), depending on how fresh they are, how they’ve been stored and transported and even what time of year they were picked means that particularly the hotter chilli varieties vary in how hot they really are. Scotch Bonnet Scoville rating is 100,000–350,000 (which is rather a big window), plus I’m sure I’ve had some which have been milder than that.
Thus sometimes one scotch bonnet in that chilli will blow your head off, other times you’ll hardly taste it. I’m sure Yeti and/or Mike will be able to bring more to this discussion (maybe this should be a post in its own right). What I love about Scotch Bonnets in that chilli is the dark, fruity flavour they bring to it.
Rick
I totally agree with the flavour comment. I think added just a nice touch of fruit to the rest of the chilli. As you know your basic green/red chillies are all heat and no flavour. I think something like that would have been totally lost in this chilli. It shows even something as small as a scotch bonnet can power through the cumin, chocolate and coffee!
This is definitely something I will be cooking again in future. Hopefully I can find some bonnets with more heat for next time. I don’t want a chilli con carne so hot it will dissolve my fillings, but a nice burning sensation in the background is preferred.
All in all a fantastic dish.
I think a post devoted to chilli heat dynamics would be useful. Plus Yeti should supply me my chillies in future! 😛
The time to add extra chilli (if necessary) is after tasting it when you may want to add more cumin/chocolate.
The second scotch bonnet went in at the end, with the hope of it being more apparent having not been cooked for 20+ minutes. No dice!
There was a nice tingle but as said I like it a bit hotter. My mum enjoyed it though and I think was secretly glad it wasn’t spicy! 😛