This meal always makes me laugh my head off because I am really immature sometimes. I call this Chilli a Black & Blue Chilli. It’s thusly named because it’s a chilli (duh) made of black beans and served with blue corn tortilla chips. Black and blue. Inventive.
I first saw blue corn tortilla chips when I was in Las Vegas and they were served as a weird hipster alternative to regular tortillas in a nacho bowl. They were different in taste to tortilla, only slightly, a little bit deeper flavoured and were salted really well. They were great until I forgot about them.
Cut to me browsing through a local supermarket when I clocked a bag of them (for £1.29 I might add) in the corner of my eye and I knew suddenly all I wanted was a bag of them. I didn’t want to go down the ‘nacho bowl’ route so I opted for a chilli.
Now I used to rip the piss out of my mum for her chillies because she would make great big panful’s of them so that’s all we would live off of for weeks, but here I am, cap in hand, realising I am very much a product of her upbringing.
You could easily serve this chilli alongside some boiled rice, as normal families do, but I like the textured crunchy snap of a tortilla under the dribbling mess of a chilli. It fills me with joy. And this chilli is an absolute dream to eat, spiked with all sorts of off-kilter sexy ingredients as opposed to your standard chilli sauce. A real throat puncher. This is the stuff you want shoved in your hands as you walk through the door.
Start off with a mirepoix, I’ve mentioned this in previous posts – 3 chopped base vegetables. Here, go for one red onion, a yellow pepper and a red chilli. Heat up a little coconut oil and fry the mirepoix with a little salt until softened.
Add a big teaspoon of chilli powder, paprika and cumin and stir to mix. Now drop in a drained can of black beans before adding my sexy ingredients to make this chilli really sing – this being a teaspoon of coco powder, a grating of fresh ginger, a teaspoon of garlic powder and a generous glob of maple syrup. Stir everything to combine.
To this pour in a can of chopped tomatoes, fill the can half way with tap water and fling it in the pan with about two tablespoons of tomato puree. Stir everything to combine, bring to a bubble and pop on a lid, allowing it to cook gently for about 30 minutes. After this time, remove the lid and add a drained can of kidney beans. Bring back to a boil and drop to a simmer for another 10/15 minutes.
Pop the lid on and take it off the heat to rest for about 10 minutes just to let the simmer calm down and to let the flavours intensify. I serve this, alongside the blue corn tortilla chips, with a little grated cheddar so mature it burns my face off, some sour cream and some chopped coriander.
MIKEY AND THE KITCHEN. 