Mmmmmm, tasty!
This is truly an amazing chilli con carne. The recipe gets its trademark by the addition of coffee and dark beer. Don’t be afraid to try this! Freeze in batches with great success.
This isn’t really about the meat as far as I’m concerned, it’s about the beans and the sauce. It’s sweet, smoky, spicy and thick. It can be quite spicy so if you want to dial back on the chilli powder or the chipotle paste then that’s fine although you’ll lose some of the smoky character if you reduce the amount of paste.
Serves: 8
Prep: 20 mins
Cook: 4 hours
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 onions, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, minced (Sometimes I add more)
- 500g minced beef
- 325g beef sirloin steak, cubed (Mostly I use casserole steak - look after the pennies etc. - and I cut it up quite small)
- 1 (400g) tin chopped tomatoes with juice
- 1 can or bottle dark beer (I could talk about this for hours. Obviously you can use a can of Guinness, but come on! If you can get something brewed with chocolate malts, that’s be great. My favourite to use in this recipe is Hook Norton Double Stout. I’ve also been known to crack open two different bottles and drink half of each!)
- 225ml strong filter coffee (French press coffee will do)
- 325g tomato puree
- 450ml beef stock
- 100g dark brown soft sugar
- 3 1/2 tablespoons chilli powder
- 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa (I use Green & Blacks)
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano (Mexican oregano if you can - God, I sound pretentious!)
- 1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 4 (400g) tins kidney beans (I like to mix this up. I usually use two tins of pinto beans, one of kidney and something different like a tin of adzuki beans)
- 4 fresh hot chillies, seeded and chopped
- Other ingredients I add which are not in the recipe: A few splashes of regular tabasco and smoked chipotle tabasco, a dash of tommy K, a dash of sweet chilli sauce, a whole punnet of mushrooms cut up fairly small (about the size of the kidney beans) and, lastly, a teaspoon – or more – of smoked chipotle paste).
Method
- Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook onions, garlic, mince and cubed sirloin in oil for 10 minutes, or until the meat is well browned and the onions are tender.
- Mix in the diced tomatoes with juice, beer, coffee, tomato puree and beef stock. Season with brown sugar, chilli powder, cumin, cocoa, oregano, cayenne pepper, coriander and salt and extra ingredients. Stir in 2 tins of the beans and hot chillies. Reduce heat to low, and simmer for 3 hours.
- Stir in the 2 remaining tins of beans, and simmer for another hour.
- Serve with rice, a splash of habanero tabasco, a wedge of lime and some natural yoghurt (if it’s too spicy!)