Ginger Jar Food

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Chris can’t cook… yet! Chilli con carne

This time on Chris Can’t Cook… Yet! the boy tackles a gutsy chilli con carne with trimmings of home made cherry tomato & lime salsa and guacamole. But no kidney beans, I couldn’t persuade him that far!

Lesson 5: Chilli con carne

I’ve started to build up quite a repertoire of classic meals that I can pull out of the hat either for visiting friends, or just to give myself a healthy feed on a weeknight, all thanks to Jenny and writing this blog. Things have changed quite a bit since the deep, dark stir-in sauce days and I feel healthier and happier for it!

I really love eating and stuffing myself to the point of lethargy, and fortunately I am blessed with the ability to eat a suspicious amount of food and still never put any weight on. So my next lesson was all booked in for making a hearty chilli con carne with all the trimmings, minus kidney beans because they are, of course,  just rubbish.

Super charged!

We started off by dicing up three onions and sweating them down in a frying pan. We then added a diced red pepper and some minced garlic. Then, to give this chilli a super charge Jenny threw in some diced chorizo and we watched all the immense spices ooze out and flavour the base of the chilli.

Next, we browned off some mince (Little Jenny was on my shoulder with the advice, “don’t stir it too much, let it get brown and crusty before breaking it up rather than ending up with a grey mass of boiled mince!”) which got added to the oniony, chorizoy pot along with some more spices for luck, some sieved tomato and a little beef stock. The kidney beans remaining safely sealed in their tin! We left the now awesome smelling chilli to simmer for an hour or so while we prepared the salsa and guacamole dips and cracked open the nachos.

Let the feeding commence!

ps. Now, as I write my blog entry and reflect back on chilli night, the thing I remember most is the epic smell that filled the kitchen.  You just don’t get that from a salt-laden jar… my advice, cook this as soon as you possibly can!

Click here for the chilli recipe Chris was using >

Next time: Chicken Katsu Curry

Next time on Chris Can’t Cook… Yet! I teach Chris to make chicken katsu curry to stop him going to Tesco and buying the rubbish variety at least once a week. His education is still far from complete!

See you soon, Jenny