Over the past week we’ve stayed in a couple of hotels and consequentially eaten out a lot at day and night. One of the items we ordered was from a standard bistro style pub in the hotel lobby which consisted of some standard nachos topped with the most amazing chill (and cheese and soured cream!). It was such a nice light meal to share and I haven’t had chilli for such a long time I decided to try and make a standard chill in my slow cooker to see how it would turn out. Then I could use the chilli to top nachos; baked potatoes or simply serve with rice.

 

Ingredients

1 splash sunflower oil

500g lean mince

1 can of chopped tomatoes

100ml of water

2 cloves of garlic, minced or I use the squeezy garlic tubes

2 chillies; chopped and de-seeded or use the squeezy tubes (or frozen/dried version described in tips below)

1 large white onion, chopped finely

1 can of kidney beans (rinsed in cold water)

1/2 beef stock cube

1 squirt of tomato puree

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon sweet, smoked paprika

1 teaspoon chilli powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

Salt and pepper

 

Method

1. Brown the mince in a frying pan; add the onions and garlic at the end to slightly brown over a medium heat
2. Add the mince and all of the other ingredients to the slow cooker and set on high
3. Cook for 4 hours
4. I took the lid off for the last 20 mins to boil off some of the water
5. Serve a big blob over nachos and sprinkle with cheese

 

Tips

Use less water if you want it thicker as slow cookers don’t allow the water to boil off so it becomes more liquidy the longer you cook it

When I have too many chillies I either hang them to dry out or chop them an put them in a blob of oli in the freezer so they don’t go off

I know people add a small block of high quality cooking chocolate to their chilli recipes but I’ve never made this work as all I can then taste is chocolate. If anyone has any tips of this I’d be grateful!?