2010 Cooking Club Week 24: Chilli!

Hm. Okay, bastardised version, but still, bastard chilli >>> no chilli.

Pickling onion left whole? Er, no. You want the onion for its aromatics not just the texture, so you want a fresh onion and you need it chopped to let it sweat down - a whole onion isn't going to sweat down, at best it'd be pan-roasted. Not bad, but nothing to do with chilli. Seriously though, there are almost no cooked dishes in the world that aren't made with onions, so worrying about leftover onions isn't something to do

Bean mix or red kidney beans is fine; some folk leave them out alltogether, some (like me) are sick of red kidney beans in chilli every. single. time. and prefer new, exciting, different beans (hell, for a while there this recipe used seven different kinds of beans - black, pinto, butter, azuki, haricot, black-eyed peas and chickpeas) But it's personal taste. Just as long as you don't use a can of baked beans, that is.

Ketchup is not the same as puree. In a pinch, use the same amount, but you'll get a different taste, and to be honest, an inferior one. You get small amounts of ketchup in long-braised meat sauces in italian-american cooking, it's true, and it's nice there, but this isn't italian-american cooking If you don't want to get tomato puree, leave it out altogether. Originally, chilli had no tomatoes in it at all anyway, and even here, it's more a small supporting cameo than a lead role.

Crushed tortillas are good, but grind them down fine in the mortar and pestle and give them time to hydrate in the stew and soften. Put them in immediately after opening the pressure cooker and let them simmer for a lot longer than in the recipe afterwards. And for the love of coffee, don't buy flavoured doritos. They'll work for texture, but your chilli will taste like someone dropped flavoured doritos into it...

If you're only adding a little beef mince by the way, just use whatever you have to hand or would normally buy - or even better, if you have a mincer, just get a little extra of the chopped beef and mince that.

Your spices are missing chilli powder (which isn't powdered chilli, but has a number of other spices in the mix). If you're worried you'll only use it for this, don't; you can add it to a lot of things because it's a spice mix. Sprinkle it lightly on chicken before grilling, or add a quarter-teaspoon to a stirfry for examples.

Start with the beef mince I'd say pick; lamb mince is nice, but a bit strange at first. And if you're mincing, use a slightly fattier cut (rib mince is about as good as I've found). Leaner mince just doesn't contribute as much flavour and it burns too easily. You want leanish chunks and fatty mince.