Dec 20

Black bean chorizo chilli

chorizochilli

I recently discovered a fantastic new deli on Rode Road: Loria Deli.  It has an excellent range of cheeses and also dried food.  A recent trip saw me walk away with a bag of black turtle beans.  Dried beans take a little more work and foresight than canned ones, but they are easy to store and usually quite a bit cheaper than tinned beans.  Also, you can get a far greater variety of dried beans than the range of tinned ones available in most supermarkets.

I used half a small chorizo sausage in a pasta dish (recipe to come) and was wondering what to do with the remaining 1 1/2 sausages.  A bit of google research led me to this website and I found the perfect dish to try out my new beans.

You can increase the amount of spice if you wish -  I would probably increase them as  I like a bit of kick in my chilli.  The chorizo adds a wonderful depth and richness to the dish and the beans help it stick to your ribs.  If you are using dried beans, you need to soak them overnight and then drain off the water before cooking.  You can either cook them separately and add towards the end, or add at the beginning and let the chilli simmer for a few hours until the beans are tender.  You may need to add more water throughout the cooking process.  I didn’t want to dirty another pot, and I had a bit of time to spare, so I cooked mine with the chilli.  I think it helped the flavours to develop.  If you used tinned beans, you will basically just be warming them, so the cooking time is greatly reduced.

I enjoyed this dish during the rainy weather at the beginning of the week, but it  has started getting far too hot to enjoy a big bowl of chilli… More salads will be making their way onto the menu.

Black bean chorizo chilli
Posted December 16, 2010 by Leah in Posted In:

Cuisines:
Details
  • Prep Time:
    10 min
  • Cook Time:
    30-180 min
  • Ready Time:
    40 min

Ingredients

  • 1.5 Chorizo sausages, diced
  • 1 tablespoon Olive oil
  • 1 cup Onion, diced
  • 1/2 cup Green capsicum, seeded and diced
  • 2 cloves Garlic, minced
  • 1 cup Black beans, soaked overnight or two tins black beans or kidney beans
  • 1.5 cups Beef stock
  • 1 tablespoon Chilli powder
  • 1 teaspoon Ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon Dried oregano
  • 1/2 teaspoon Dried thyme
  • 1/4 teaspoon Dried chilli flakes
  • 1 teaspoon Salt (or to taste)
  • 1/2 teaspoon Ground pepper or to taste

Directions

  1. Heat oil in a dutch over or large saucepan over medium-high heat.
  2. Add onion, green capsicum and chorizo.  Saute for about 5 minutes.
  3. Add remaining ingredients.
  4. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the beans are cooked.  Stir occasionally.  If the beans have been soaked but not cooked this will probably take 2-3 hours and you may need to add more water several times.  If they are pre-cooked it should only take 30 minutes or so.  A tip though, the longer you cook it the more the flavours will develop.
  5. Serve with various sides - avocado, corn chips, sour cream or natural yoghurt, cheese, rice.
20.12.10 | Of: , , , | In: Food | One comment

Jun 16

Winter-warmer – Chilli!

chilli

Unfortunately I can’t take credit for this recipe -  this comes for the blog “For the love of cooking” and as she says, she has been perfecting it for 12 years now.  I have to say, it’s a pretty great recipe.

Of course, I can’t seem to follow a recipe exactly, so here are my changes.  Instead of stew meat I used beef mince.  I used a whole red capsicum and a whole green one for both flavour and colour.  I omitted the garlic powder as I don’t have any.  I omitted the can of green chillies and instead added zucchini.  I just used a small tub of tomato paste instead of tomato sauce.  And I used 2 tins of kidney beans instead of other beans.  If you’re a vegetarian, just omit the beef – I’ve made it several times without and it’s still lovely.

To serve, I added natural yoghurt, grated cheddar, sliced spring onions, and avocado mixed with lemon juice, salt and pepper.  Usually I would serve with rice, but I had leftover cous-cous to use up.  I topped with a healthy serve of corn chips for crunch.

This recipe makes at least 4 large man-sized serves, so we divided up the remain and froze it for a meal at a later date.  I recommed you start this recipe early in the day so the flavours of the chilli have time to blend and develop.  As the smells waft through the house it will be very difficult to resist scooping up a portion early but I promise it is worth the wait!

16.06.10 | Of: , , , | In: Food | Leave a comment