Cheeky Chilli

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Jambo
Hollow Legs
Posts: 396
Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 2:00 pm
Location: Aberdeenshire

Cheeky Chilli

Post by Jambo » Fri Sep 30, 2016 10:03 am

By far the best way I have found to make chilli con carne is with a big hunk of a cheap cut of beef, cooked all day in the slow cooker.

I have tried various cuts including spaul, brisket and short ribs, but so far cheeks have been the best, plus it gives you the added benefit of being able to call it cheeky chilli. Some of these cuts can be cheaper than mince. And of course a bottle of your finest ale makes it all the better.

You can safely add or remove quite a bit to/from this recipe without anything going drastically wrong.

This serves 6 savages, maybe more than 8 normal people

Ingredients
A pair of ox cheeks approx 1 kg
1 large onion preferably red
1 carrot
2 large garlic cloves
Tin of tomatoes or carton of passata
Tin of kidney beans
Fresh thyme, parsley
Spices - suggest 1 tbsp cumin, 1 tsp coriander, 1 tsp mild chilli powder.
1 tsp salt
Chillis - as many different kinds as you can get, dry, fresh etc. but watch out as long slow cooking really does utilise them well. Chipotles are great to add and also ancho.
1-2 Red peppers - ideally roasted and skinned - you can get these in jars which saves a lot of messing around.
A bottle of flavoursome ale
Tomato puree
BBQ sauce (preferably home made)
Sour cream
Optional: espresso, dark chocolate


Method
Brown the ox cheeks in a frying pan, put in the slow cooker. Then fry the onion and carrot until the onion has coloured up a little, add the garlic towards the end for a couple of minutes, spices and salt for one minute, then add tomato puree then tin of tomatoes/passata. Get it all hot then add to the slow cooker along with beans, thyme, chillis, peppers and beer and coffee and chocolate if using.
Cook all day - about 8 hrs. Note if you don't have a slow cooker, use a roasting tin tightly covered with foil in a low oven, but check it now and again to make sure it isn't drying out/burning. You can get a better result this way due to the caramelisation of everything but need to be careful.

After 6-8 hrs, remove the cheeks to a plate and shred them with two forks, discard any gristly bits and put the meat back in the cooker. Add a couple of tbsp of each BBQ sauce and sour cream to bind everything. At this point you may want to take off some of the liquid to a separate pan on the hob to reduce it a little. Again be careful you don't burn it.

Serve with tortillas/rice/baked potatoes with pleny of grated cheese, sour cream and guacamole and fine ales. Enjoy

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