This post has now been migrated over to the new website - you should check it out over there - also, it actually has the chilli recipe with it now! The fourth best chilli in the UK
There has been lots of cooking since then - the last post was about the Gower Chilli Cook-Off 2017 - which resulted in a bronze and a place in the UK finals, and this time three weeks ago I was just preparing to compete in the Gower chilli cook off 2018.
Unfortunately, in the middle of the longest heatwave I can remember in recent years, there was one weekend of rain and gale force winds - which resulted in the competition being cancelled. Which was a shame, and rather unfortunately the news of the cancellation didn't come in until after I had purchased around 4 kilos of meat. None the less, the meat got cooked, and it fed 7 adults for two nights, if not entirely impressively.
So to the finals, last September I competed in the UK finals of the Chilli cook off, just missing out on a spot on the podium (and a prize!) taking 4th spot, probably out of about 12 teams. Unbelievably, I was just cleaning out a drawer in the house yesterday, and I found all score cards from last year, and being so sure I had taken photos already I binned them all, only to discover now I don't have them! The scores were more consistent in the final, a similar total to the Gower round, but all 4 came in around 38/39 or so (rather than the two outliers of 31 & 49 from Gower) .
Once again, we did manage to learn some things to take forward though - this time I didn't pre-chop the meat ahead of the competition, which resulted in me being slightly slap dash in trimming the meat under competition deadlines, which meant there were some strap pieces of fat left in there (one judge noted it was a bit chewy in parts, so can only assume they found a stray piece of fat).
Following the cancellation of this year's cook-off, the UKCCA held a draw to select three teams to go through by default, and we were one of the teams pulled from the hat, so as long as its a convenient location and time to attend, we will hopefully still ride again this year. Although I have decided, based on a theory rather than practice, that my entry will be a "cheeky" chilli - using beef and pork cheek for the meat. Who knows how that will turn out!
Here are some of the highlight reel for the last year..
There's been home made chorizo (failed)
.. cake (mixed results)
.. Spanish sausage (ace)
of course, lots of BBQ (shoulder of lamb, pulled pork, ribs, etc)
and cookies!
