Weekend Man Food

Slow Cooked Chilli

This dish is a firm favourite here at NU. A big one pot dish, cooked at the weekend, will feed you in to the week. You won't get bored of eating the same thing either. Chilli is versatile and can be served in a number of ways.

We normally have it with rice at first then use up any left overs to make burritos with sour cream & guacamole.

If you have the patience the chilli benefits from being left in the fridge overnight after you've cooked it. The flavour always seems to improve.

The following was is based on a recipe I found on BBC Food, but has gradually evolved over the years to what you see here. 

Most recipes use beef mince only, but I prefer the deeper more rounded flavour that a pork / beef mix gives. I have also stopped using mince. The end result is much improved by using chopped braising or stewing steak and a fatty cut of pork like shoulder.

Feel free to improvise with the amount and type of chillies and the spices, the following is merely what works for me.

Ingredients:

1. 500g pork shoulder, roughly chopped
2. 500g beef stewing steak, roughly chopped
3. 2 or 3 onions, finely chopped
4. 2 cloves garlic, crushed
5. 2 peppers, finely chopped
6. 1 stick celery, finely chopped
7. 4 chillies, finely chopped
8. 1 bay leaf
9. 1 tbsp cumin seeds
10. 1 tbsp coriander seeds
11. 1 tbsp dried oregano
12. 1 cinnamon stick
13. 1 tsp black pepper corns
14. 1 tbsp paprika
15. 2 tsp cayenne pepper
16. 1 dollop, tomato puree
17. 2 x 400g tinned tomatoes
18. 250ml beef stock
19. 1 x tin lima beans
20. 1 x tin kidney beans
21. square, dark chocolate, chopped
22. handful, fresh coriander, finely chopped

Method:

1. Gather all ingredients together first. Chop all the vegetables & meat. Measure out your spices and toast all the seeds & cinnamon for one minute in a small dry frying pan. Crush in mortar & pestle (or grinder) and mix together with other spices and herbs.
2. Heat large pan with olive or rape-seed oil. Fry the meat until browned. Remove from pan and set aside
3. Add all the vegetables and fry for 5-6 minutes until golden
4. Then add the spices and mix in
5. Return the meat to pan and stir to combine
6. Add the tomato puree, stock and tinned tomatoes. Bring to the boil
7. Reduce heat and leave to simmer, partially covered, for 4 hours or until the source has thickened up and the meat is on the verge of falling apart.
8. Add the chocolate, kidney and lima beans and simmer till hot through
9. Sprinkle with the fresh coriander and serve with riceYou can use any leftover to make burritos too. This is really good with a pale ale or ballsy Spanish red wine.

If anyone has any suggestions or comments on what they put in their chilli we'd love to hear it.

Have a good weekend chaps.

Weekend Man Food

One Pot Pork & Fennel.

Based on a Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall recipe, this one pot dish is quick to prepare and absolutely delicious. The HFW original uses ready cooked left over pork and potatoes. 

Having a surplus of the same ingredients in the raw I decided to make mine from scratch, but feel free to improvise with what you have.

As HFW says in River Cottage Every Day, "pork has a great affinity with fennel," the aniseed note to the fennel taking the edge off the fattiness in the pork. I've added paprika here too, in combination with the fennel it works fantastically well.

Ingredients:-

1. 500g fatty pork, chopped and seasoned with salt & pepper.
2. 2 fennel bulbs, trimmed & sliced length ways.
3. However many potatoes you need - chopped and par boiled.
4. 2 tsp paprika
5. oil

Procedure:-

1. In a hot pan fry off the pork in oil until thoroughly browned all over. Remove form pan and set aside.
2. Fry the fennel for about 5 to 6 minutes until soft and golden.
3. Add the pork and potatoes. Mix together.
4. Add paprika and a bit more salt & pepper if needed.
5. Turn down heat and cover until hot through.
6. Serve with whatever vegetables your wife / girlfriend has decided to cook.

That's it chaps. Enjoy!