When I was growing up, my Mam did not cook separate meals.
As the matriarch of our home, if she had the ‘burden’ of preparing the evening meal, then what was being cooked was what was being cooked. If you didn’t like parsley, scrape it out, and if you didn’t like beans, eat around them.
What she’s cooking is what you’re getting.
She used to do what I would call her ‘war cry’ every morning. This did not mean standing on the roof Braveheart style and banging the pans of war, but it was a gentle alert to the household what was for dinner that night.
She would be the first up in the morning and would have cleaned the bathroom, mopped the floor, got ready for work, and prepped the lunch boxes before I’d even taken my eye mask off. But she would also have lined up her ingredients for that night’s meal on the kitchen countertop and this was her warning to the house.
The ingredients sang ‘If you don’t like what you see here, make something else for yourself’. As a result, you will never hear me say I’m a fussy eater and for that, I am eternally grateful.
On more mornings than I can count, I’d bound down the stairs in my school uniform, a backpack bigger than my body, and see the kidney beans and the cans of tomatoes and think: ‘Oh, she’s on the chilli again’ and led by teenage angst, would mock her for continuously returning to chilli when needing to feed the masses.
It took maturity and having to manage my own kitchen to fully understand why this big pan of comfort was her failsafe.
I’ve learned that a chilli, is in fact, quite literally the perfect recipe. It is all the better to be made in advance, the flavours welcoming the space to intensify the longer it waits, almost begging to be made long before it’s demanded, affording you deep-breath inducing comfort, knowing that food is not only already made, but it will be better as a result.
It’s one-pot appeal means that the washing up is kept to a minimum, and most of all, I’ve learned, that it’s one of those recipes that even when you put twists and turns on it, no matter how much you deviate from the tradition, it will still always taste like a familiar conversation.
And I mocked my Mam for it.
For this mockery, Mam, please consider this recipe my apology.
I love serving this alongside my Baked Cardamom Butter Rice, but if you want to serve this with more clout, my Skillet Cornbread really is the way to go.
For this, add 1 tablespoon goose fat (or butter and a small drop of vegetable oil) to a 22cm cast iron skillet and put it in the oven, immediately switching the oven to 200°C for the fat to melt while the oven preheats.
In a large bowl or jug, whisk together 185g ground yellow cornmeal with 60g self-rising flour, a pinch of salt, and 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda.
Add in 200g buttermilk or plain yogurt, 1 egg and 80g of melted butter (just quickly zapped in a microwave is fine) whisking all together to create a gritty batter.
Take the skillet out of the oven, pour the batter into the hot fat, using a spoon to coax the batter to the edges, and put back in the oven for 20 minutes.
The cornbread can also be made in a lined 20cm round loose-bottomed tin and baked for 35 minutes – but you lose your right to anoint it Skillet Cornbread, I’m afraid.
Serves 4 – 6
120g chorizo
1 onion – peeled and chopped finely
1 clove garlic
170g roast red peppers (drained from a jar)
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp chilli powder
200g beef mince
1 beef stock cube
1 x 400g can of tomatoes
1 tbs tomato puree
4 small squares dark chocolate
1 x 400g can of black beans – drained and rinsed
To serve
Chopped coriander
Sour cream
Mashed avocado
Rice or Skillet Cornbread (see intro)
- Chop the chorizo up into small chunks and drop into a large dry pan with high sides, frying on a medium heat until it begins to let out it’s orange oils.
- Add the onion to the pan and stir it into the oils before adding a little salt.
- Put the garlic clove on a chopping board and then place the peppers on top of it. Chop both garlic and the peppers as finely as you can and add to the pan. Cook everything together for about 5 or 10 minutes until the onion starts to lose its rawness.
- Now add the spices, stirring into the pan so that everything is coated.
- Add the mince and using your spoon, break it up as best as you can, turning it around in the pan until the onions, chorizo and mince are covered in the spices. Cook until the mince starts to lose its rawness, roughly 10 – 15 minutes.
- Add the stock cube into the pan before emptying in the can of chopped tomatoes and adding the tomato paste. Fill the can up halfway with tap water and add to the pan with some more salt and pepper, stirring everything together.
- Bring the pan to a big bubble and once bubbling, add the chocolate squares. Stir them into the bubbling sauce, clamp a lid on the pan and lower the heat, allowing it to simmer for 20 minutes.
- After the 20 minutes, remove the lid and empty the black beans into the pan, stir them in and bring the pan back up to a ferocious bubble and put the lid back on for about 10 – 15 minutes.
- Remove from the heat completely, allowing to rest. You can either serve now or cover and keep in the fridge for 3 – 4 days, reheating thoroughly on serving.
- I’d serve with a boastful scattering of fresh coriander, a dollop of sour cream, some avocado which you’ve crushed, limed and salted and either some rice or my preferred option, my Skillet Cornbread (see intro).
MIKEY AND THE KITCHEN. 