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Chilli Con Carne

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Apologies for yet another Mexican themed post … but this time it’s home cooking, so if you’re not in Adelaide (or you can’t get yourself to one of the many places popping up) you can replicate a bit of Mexico in your own kitchen. Well, it might not be Mexico, but it’s Paul Merrett’s take on Mexico.

What I really liked about this chilli con carne recipe is that it doesn’t feature any hard to track down ingredients. In fact, the chances are that you’ll have most of them in your cupboard so your shopping list will be slim. What’s also novel is that Merrett serves the chilli in tortillas with all the extras. This was something we both really loved and it makes a diverting change from fajitas.

As this dish is based on beef mince, it’s important to choose a time to cook this when you can give it a good, long, slow cook. Any dish like this (think things like Bolognese sauce) needs time to mesh all the flavours together and to make sure that any raw beef or tomato flavours are fully cooked out.

Naturally, I departed from the original recipe a little …

Heat a little oil in a large saucepan, and fry off a finely sliced onion and four cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped. Add 700g (I think I actually had 680g but you get the idea) of minced beef and cook this for a bit. I didn’t bother waiting for it all to start going brown (I would have been there all afternoon) but I did wait for it to start to look a bit cooked. I then added 1 tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp paprika and chilli powder to taste (I used hot ground chillis and used somewhere between ¼ and ½ tsp and it was warmer than I expected). I then added 250mL of open rosé that I had hanging around, a generous splash of Worcestershire sauce, 1 tin of crushed tomatoes, and one concentrated beef stock jelly thing.

At this point, you need to give the pot a stir and judge whether or not you need to add a bit more water.

Rinse (and drain) a tin of red kidney beans and add these, stir everything and leave it to tick over for a good couple of hours. I didn’t need to add any salt but you may wish to adjust the seasoning.

When it comes to serving, spoon some of the chilli onto a warmed tortilla and add some sour cream, grated cheese, shredded lettuce, and some sliced onion and spring onion. Wrap and eat.

Of course, the chilli works perfectly well outside the tortilla (and, indeed, I had leftovers for lunch a couple of times) so you could always serve with whatever you normally have as a Mexican accompaniment.

I loved the fact that this recipe is based around readily available ingredients – the only things I had to buy were the beef and the kidney beans. So often Mexican recipes need 3 different types of chillis that can only be bought at Mexican specialist shops. It was super quick to put together (letting something sit on the stove is not work!) and it was tasty. Having it in tortillas was great, and something that will definitely work over summer, but if you’re making it in the depths of winter, it’s hearty and warming.

Definitely something I’ll be making again.

Apple Crumble

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Apple Crumble & Custard

While Spring is technically just around the corner here in Adelaide it’s still really cold. After a pleasant couple of days early this week Thursday and Friday are still looking chilly so it’s not too late to think about making an apple crumble.

This is the easiest of desserts to make. For the two of us, and using a small pie dish, I peeled and quite coarsely sliced 2 Granny Smith apples – let’s say I cut them into eighths. I put them in a pan on low heat, with a splash of water, a scant tablespoon of caster sugar and half a cinnamon stick. I then walked away and ended up doing a pile of other things and when I remembered that I had apples on the stove they were almost at puree stage. Oops! Perhaps don’t cook yours quite so long. Really you just want to soften them a bit but have them retaining their shape.

I put my puree in the pie dish, no greasing required, and topped it with a layer of finely sliced Granny Smith (to ensure the finished product had some texture).

For the crumble I used 100g plain flour, 25g caster sugar and 50g of unsalted butter. You have no choice with crumble but to make it by hand as you do not want it too fine and you also don’t want it too homogenous: a few chunks here and there are a good thing. So work the crumble mixture by hand until the butter is mostly all incorporated – a few small bits here and there is fine. Overall, the mixture should resemble coarse sand.

Spread the crumble over the apples. Don’t press it down to form a hard crust (that’s called pastry and you’ve done it wrongly!). Bake in an oven preheated to 200°C (conv) for 40 minutes or until the crumble starts to turn golden.

Serve hot or warm, with cream, ice cream or custard.

Veal Schnitzel Bake Recipe

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Another cookbook that I won at some point, and which has also been sorely neglected, is The Complete Matthew Hayden Cookbook. Yes – you read that correctly, that Matthew Hayden. The one better known for his prowess with the willow than a wok.

This is a cookbook in which you’re more likely to find a recipe for bangers and mash than … um … something extremely complicated, fancy sounding and long winded. I chose my recipe by the tried and true method of opening the book on a random page and hit upon the veal schnitzel bake.

At first glance I thought “hmmm, probably not” (I always think the word “bake”, particularly when applied to savoury recipes, sounds particularly unappetising) but had a quick read of the recipe and it looked simple, quick and tasty.

When I actually came to make the dish, I found I had a small person attached to at least one leg, so there not much chance of checking the recipe, let alone following it too carefully!  However, this isn’t something that needs careful measurement or attendance and (even better) you can prepare it in advance and have it in the fridge ready to go.

First take some veal schnitzels (I used 5 smallish ones from our butcher – already flattened out but NOT crumbed) and pan fry them. The recipe says to crumb them before frying and I did this with a couple but then realised this was completely pointless. It’s just a good way to create extra dish washing! As the schnitzels are thin and will be cooked in the assembled dish you just want to get some good colour on them. A minute or two on either side should do the job (naturally, ensure your pan is good and hot so you don’t steam/poach them – you may need to do this in multiple batches).

Remove the veal from the pan and set aside. Now make your tomato sauce, in the same pan – to take advantage of the pan juices.

I guess really you could make any tomato sauce you fancied but I did roughly follow what was in the book. Heat some olive oil in a pan and then add some finely sliced onion and garlic. The book’s recipe also used chilli at this point but the only fresh chillis we had were fierce and I was planning on feeding this to the baby (who, incidentally, is far more chilli tolerant than I ever give him credit …). When the onions were soft, in went a tin of crushed tomatoes, a sprinkle of oregano and a few generous handfuls of pitted black olives (I actually used Kalamata olives – have you noticed how difficult it is to buy Australian olives of either colour in mainstream retailers?!). Let this all cook down to thicken – you do want to cook a fair bit of moisture out of it because you don’t want your bake to end up soggy!

To assemble the bake, layer the veal in a baking dish and top with the tomato sauce. If you want to prepare ahead, stop here! Don’t put the bread crumbs on in advance – they’ll soak up any moisture and potentially leave the bake a bit dry.

When you’re ready to cook, cover thickly with bread crumbs (I used panko) and top with grated cheddar cheese – be generous here! You want a good cover of cheese – not only will it taste good but it will also stop the breadcrumbs burning if you have your oven up a bit high.

Pop in an oven preheated to 180°C and bake for a good 20 minutes or so. If the top isn’t looking golden and bubbling, increase the heat or finish off under the grill.

Serve piping hot (with vegetables or salad – naturally – got to get those 5 a day!).

This was tasty, quick and perfect on a cold winter weeknight.