NoozeHound currentl;y sports a three-inch burn across his right arm. A cooking injury, no less.
This may amaze those of you who know me even slightly.
Mrs NoozeHound is attending the church harvest lunch. It's a bring and share affair. This year she decided she would like to take a big pot of Chilli. Not being remotely churchy myself is the surprising bit.
Now it's dificult to be exactly certain, but Mrs NoozeHound says she loves my Chilli. It is damned fine, though I say so myself, but let's face it, it's not the most demanding of things to cook (burnt arm aside).
She asked for 'my recipe' as "...it's always so nice."
It was as she began cooking it, having had me assemble all of the spices and provide her with a shopping list after checking what we had in the house, that she dropped in the sentence that I have since suspected to be her real motive for 'loving my chilli'.
Mrs NoozeHound, part-way through chopping the onions, and asking what she should do next, drops the immortal line..."You can make it for me if you like....?"
Oh yes. I would have loved that.
As it is, I ended up stirring it more than she last night and this morning and t'was I that broke the chocolate into the bubbling cauldron this morning - after I had received my burn. Well, my suspicions are now firmly aroused.
Not that me cooking is especially unusual, particularly while I have been assessing my options and working on new strategies for employment - yeah, the out of work thing that I've been doing.
No doubt hearing how wonderful Mrs NoozeHound thinks my Chilli is you are dying to get the recipe.
Try this, the recipe gives a warm heat in the mouth but doesn’t punish your butt.
This post was a game of two halves. I started it, hopped off to watch the football , then came back to finish. I was a little late leaving and when I found a working stream the mighty Arsenal were already one-nil down.
That was not my proposed script for this game and fortunately nor was it Arsenal's. When Tommy V's equaliser scorched in, I thought that was the sign that things were about to change in our favour.
Dunn must have been oblivious to this fact as he proceeded to score at the wrong end and we were a goal down again. It was a sucker-punch against the run of play.
My stream was slightly slow and it made it look like old Pathe footage but in glorious colour. What was even more apparent was Arsenal's slick passing and speed of movement. Robinson's goal was under a constant barrage and two minutes later Cesc played one of his killer defence-splitting passes and RVP drew us level again.
No doubt hearing how wonderful Mrs NoozeHound thinks my Chilli is you are dying to get the recipe.
Try this, the recipe gives a warm heat in the mouth but doesn’t punish your butt.
500g - Cheap beef steak - cut into small cubes
1 Green Pepper - chopped 1/2" squares
1 Red Pepper - chopped 1/2" squares
about an inch of Chipotle Chilli - finely chopped.
1 carton of Tomato Juice
1 carton of Pasata (sieved tomatoes)
2 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
2 large onions - finely chopped
2 cloves garlic - finely chopped
2 stalks of celery – chopped
1 400g tin red kidney beans
4 pack 330ml bottles Mexican/American beer
2 - Beef Oxo cubes
1 dessert spoon generic Hot Chilli powder
1 dessert spoon generic Mild chilli powder
1 dessert spoon Cayenne Pepper
1 heaped teaspoon Paprika
1 heaped teaspoon Coriander
1 heaped teaspoon Cumin powder
1 good grind of black pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt
4 squares of Lindt 72% or 85% Dark chocolate - don't sub with Bourneville it's poor.
- plus you can feed the rest to your lady.
Chilli is supposed to be a one pot dish.
Because I don’t have a pot wide enough and shallow enough I have to use a frying pan and a big pot. Like that I know that the key ingredients have had their fry-up before setting them to boil/simmer.
I prefer to use cheap steak because it will go proper soft after the amount of cooking time and you don’t get the fat you do with mince – if you substitute for mince, try and scoop of the fat – it will ruin the dish.
Chop up the steak into loosely 2cm cubes. Remove any fat/gristle.
Chop the onions, garlic , peppers and celery and chilli.
Now gently fry the meat so it’s brown all over, drain off any fat and spoon into the saucepan.
Now fry up the veggies for a few minutes to soften them up and bring out their flavours, schweet.
You’ll get the fragrance of that chilli come up now – cool huh?
Drain off with a perforated spoon and lob into the saucepan – make sure to get all of it.
Empty into the saucepan the two tins of tomatoes (you know to open the tins right?)
Give it a good stir.
Turn on the heat – high.
Drain the kidney beans and luzz em in – that brine is rank man.
Stirring the pot, empty in the carton of Pasata and the tomato juice.
Got to the fridge and get out two of the beers.
Open them, empty one into the saucepan.
Sip the other while putting in the Oxo and all of the seasoning, stirring constantly.
As it approaches the boil, watch out – the mutha will spit like a bitch and all that red stuff will proper stain your clothes guy.
Keep stirring, then reduce to the heat to really low.
Enjoy the beer – but leave the other two for enjoying with your meal – neat eh.
Go back every ten minutes or so and give it a good stir – you so don’t want it to stick and put a burnt flavour through the whole thing – that just sucks – trust me on that.
Do this for about 2 hours, stirring every so often.
The last stir, turn back up the heat to 3/4s.
Break the chocolate in and give it a good stir to it’s all proper moogled in.
Now taste it.
Don’t be doing no double-dipping – this is important – it’s gonna sit a while.
Does it need any minor adjustments?
Is it missing anything?
It should rise a sweat on your brow and be noticeably but not uncomfortably hot in your mouth.
Just right – Excellent.
Turn it off and cover it. – Depending on the time of year, leave it on the stove or if you think that it might be to warm, put it in the fridge.
Leave it to sup up the flavours for 24 hours, eg cook it Friday evening, eat it Saturday evening.
Worse cook it Saturday morning eat it Saturday night.
(You can eat it straight away, but it won’t be at it’s best and it seems a shame.)
When you're ready to eat, warm it up again. Slowly, stirring all the time.
Serve up in a bowl, sprinkle some mature cheddar on top and eat with a big chunk of fresh bread. I find Pain de Campaign goes really well, buttered or not.
Eat with a spoon and use the last bit of bread to wipe around the bowl.
Enjoy with a beer.
Afterwards, continue your Tex-Mex adventure with Margueritas or perhaps Tequila slammers.
Then some Acapulco Gold to Panama Red to round the evening off perfectly :)
The Joy of Six
This post was a game of two halves. I started it, hopped off to watch the football , then came back to finish. I was a little late leaving and when I found a working stream the mighty Arsenal were already one-nil down.
That was not my proposed script for this game and fortunately nor was it Arsenal's. When Tommy V's equaliser scorched in, I thought that was the sign that things were about to change in our favour.
Dunn must have been oblivious to this fact as he proceeded to score at the wrong end and we were a goal down again. It was a sucker-punch against the run of play.
My stream was slightly slow and it made it look like old Pathe footage but in glorious colour. What was even more apparent was Arsenal's slick passing and speed of movement. Robinson's goal was under a constant barrage and two minutes later Cesc played one of his killer defence-splitting passes and RVP drew us level again.
The onslaught continued and Arshavin gave us our first lead of the game ten minutes from half-time.
Second half saw Theo on for Rosicky who'd played well was unlucky not to get on the score sheet. Having seen Blackburn take the lead twice, while being dominant we still looked a bit shaky at the back and could have seen ourselves in the same position as them.
We needn't have worried. Captain Fantastic steps up and thumps one past Robinson. 4-2.
More sparkling movement and Theo gets his first goal bonus for many a moon.
Bendnter came on and was starting to really frustrate me. He kept running at the Blackburn defence only for them to relive him of the ball without too much trouble. Several times he set out on a beat everyone run, beating few or none. losing the ball and breaking up the attack.
I thought it would stay like this, then Bendtner ran across the edge of the box, got in front of goal and leathered it into the bottom-right corner, off the post and past Robinson once more.
The joy I reference above relates to the number of scorers rather than the number of goals. It was a hell of a performance today and I doubt for once second there was anything so scintillating to watch on the other side of town this afternoon.
Well, fat Sam,
- welcome to the disappointment.
Second half saw Theo on for Rosicky who'd played well was unlucky not to get on the score sheet. Having seen Blackburn take the lead twice, while being dominant we still looked a bit shaky at the back and could have seen ourselves in the same position as them.
We needn't have worried. Captain Fantastic steps up and thumps one past Robinson. 4-2.
More sparkling movement and Theo gets his first goal bonus for many a moon.
Bendnter came on and was starting to really frustrate me. He kept running at the Blackburn defence only for them to relive him of the ball without too much trouble. Several times he set out on a beat everyone run, beating few or none. losing the ball and breaking up the attack.
I thought it would stay like this, then Bendtner ran across the edge of the box, got in front of goal and leathered it into the bottom-right corner, off the post and past Robinson once more.
The joy I reference above relates to the number of scorers rather than the number of goals. It was a hell of a performance today and I doubt for once second there was anything so scintillating to watch on the other side of town this afternoon.
Well, fat Sam,
- welcome to the disappointment.
