Campfire chilli

Another weekend on lockdown, but this time it was with almost summer-like weather. Sun was shining and reportedly 20 degrees, but whatever it was, it was warm enough to be in shorts and t-shirts and spending all day in the garden. And as long as it's warm enough to be outside, its warm enough to cook outside!

To be honest with you, my original plan for campfire chilli was to homeschool the kids a little bit about making campfires, but I soon realised, with the lovely weather, it would be a bit anti-social to have a fire in the garden in the middle of the hottest day of the year so far, so it ended up being over coal briquettes (smoke-less) and we ended up not having any educational how-to-build-a-fire fun (we will have to save that for an evening time) but instead cooking a chilli on the BBQ.

It's been a couple of years since I last entered a chilli cook-off and had the pleasure of cooking chilli outside, so had forgotten how much fun it is cooking chilli outside. It's a very low-maintenance, hands-off affair, that takes a few hours to cook (meaning you have to stand around outside in the sun all afternoon) and fills the air with the most wonderful of smells (and quite different to your standard BBQ smells, so maybe that was quite inconsiderate of the neighbours too!).

The chilli can be made on a BBQ, a campfire, a camping stove or just inside on the hob - you'll be cooking for probably three hours or more, so as long as you have the fuel to last then cook where you like! (BBQ briquettes easily burn that long, mine were still red hot hours later, campfires you can get going and just keep fuelling with logs).

Ingredients

• 1 onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• a couple chillis (red/green/jalapeno, as you like) - optional
• 2 carrots
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (optional, if you don't have this on your shelf then don't worry about it)
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder (optional, if you don't have this on your shelf then don't worry about it)
• 2 teaspoons oregano
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 tablespoon chilli powder (when I entered chilli cook-offs, I would blend chilli powders often De Arbol, Mulato and New Mexico Red, but for regular family chilli powder, run of the mill supermarket chilli powder will work fine)
• 1 tin 400g chopped tomatoes
• 400ml vegetable stock
• 1 sheet gelatin (optional)
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• Meat: this weekend I used 500g chopped pork shoulder & 70g chopped chorizo - but you can choose the meat as you please. My competition chilli would normally be pre-dominantly beef (short ribs) and some pork (pork cheek, chorizo etc) - but you can use any meat you please, just as long as its suitable for slow cooking - pork shoulder, beef ribs, beef shin, ox cheek, pork cheek etc - or just supermarket generic braising steak type thing.

Method

1. If cooking outside, get the fire going and nice and hot
   
   
2. In a large pot, add a drizzle of oil and start cooking the onion and carrots until soft and translucent, probably about ten minutes (depending how hot the fire is - it often takes a bit to really get going)
   
   
3. Add the garlic, chillis (if using), pork (e.g. chorizo or bacon) and tomato puree and cook for a further minute
   
   
4. Mix in the spices and oregano and cook a minute longer
   
   
5. Add the main meat you are cooking with and brown in the pan (don't stir it too much to allow it to brown nicely)
   
   
6. Mix the sheet of gelatin (if using) with the 400 ml vegetable stock, stir so it dissolves and then add the liquid to the pot and stir
   
   
7. Allow to come to the boil and reach a rolling simmer (if you are cooking outside, you wont have fine control, but because the liquid essentially braises the meat so the liquid acts as a temperature control)
   
   
8. After an hour or so, add the tomatoes and cider vinegar
   
   
9. Continue to cook, stir occasionally, for another two hours or so. If it gets too thick, then add some more boiling water
   
   
10. When its done, the meat should be tender, and you will probably be able to pull it apart with forks (like pulled pork), which can help create a nice textured chilli, with some pulled meat and some chunks left whole.
    
    
11. Serve with rice, nachos, fajitas or whatever!

Easy weeknight ratatouille

So, still being on lockdown, and with the limitations currently in place, both around availability of online shopping and leaving the house, I decided on the weekend to order a veg box as an alternative (or at least a supplement to) regular supermarket shop deliveries. Included in the box was a big old aubergine, and whilst I did consider smoking it on the bbq, I decided to stick with the usual ratatouille (I had smoked aubergine at Smoke Stak in London once, and it was incredible - the best thing on their menu - and I have plans to try and re-create it one day).

Growing up I ate my fair share of courgettes and aubergines, almost always in the form of ratatouille. My dad would grow courgettes in his greenhouse, and they were prolific in their output. They'd be producing faster than we could eat them, so over the summer we would be inundated with them - and it became traditional that ratatouille would be a side dish with pretty much all BBQs we had (a tradition I am fast adopting myself). It would usually get to the point where my dad would have to freeze courgettes as they weren't being eaten fast enough, and whilst he will probably maintain he kept them in empty ice cream tubs in the freezer for practical reasons, it seems like a cruel trick to play on your kids (if you were to look in his freezer and discover an ice cream tub these days, my guess would be it would be full of frozen chillis, rather than courgettes - but either way, its unlikely going to be ice cream).

So, I called this recipe an easy weeknight version - and thats mostly because its relatively simple and only has a few ingredients, however, as with most my cooking it does want a little time in the oven to bring out its magic. Your active time will be quite short, but time to table a bit longer - if you can steal 30 minutes or so in the middle of the afternoon or even lunchtime so its got time to sit in the oven ahead of dinner, then you'll be grand.

Ingredients

• 1 aubergine, sliced into discs
• 1-2 courgettes, sliced (as chunky as you like them)
• 1 onion (I used red yesterday, but white is fine), finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• dried oregano - about a tablespoon
• olive oil (quite a few glugs - aubergines really drink this up)
• tomato puree
• 1 400 gram tin of chopped tomoatos

Method

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees fan oven (adjusting if not a fan oven, usually you just add 20 degrees)

1. First of all, we will slice and salt the aubergine - we want to get that done up front as we to let the rest salted. Simply slice the aubergine into discs, lay them out on some kitchen towel and liberally salt them. Editors note:  there is debate around whether this is necessary - it used to be to draw out the bitterness, which has apparently been bred out of aubergines anyway. Another alternative to salting is to pre-cook them in the microwave, but I salt them partly out of nostalgia - my dad salts his aubergines - and partly because its the only seasoning I add to this recipe, and it works well.
   
   
2. Next lets start on the tomato sauce - add some olive oil to a saucepan over a medium heat and add the chopped onions - cook for 5-10 minutes until softened and slightly translucent
   
   
3. Add the chopped garlic and oregano, stir and cook for a further minute - try not to let the garlic brown
   
   
4. Add a tablespoon of tomato puree, stir through and cook for a further minute
   
   
5. Add the chopped tomatoes, stir through and pop it in the oven (you can just continue cooking on the hob if you prefer, but I prefer the quality you get when oven cooked)
   
   
6. In another frying pan (I use my cast iron skillet for this - which does a great job, as long as you get it nice and hot) add some more olive oil, and once its hot cook the courgettes. As long as the pan is hot enough, it should only take a few minutes for them to brown nicely. Once browned and soft, transfer them to a kitchen towel lined plate (this is to remove some of the oil from them).
   
   
7. Next throw in the aubergines - depending on how big the aubergine pieces are, this shouldn't take too long (and if you are using a decent frying pan, it should be really hot by now). You may have to add a couple glugs more olive oil, as aubergines will really absorb that - but thats ok, the additional olive oil helps add to the flavour and richness of the finished dish. Once browned, transition to another lined plate
   
   
8. At this point we will construct the finished dish - you can just slam it altogether if you like, but I go for a layered approach: in an oven dish, layer the aubergines, then courgettes, then top with the tomato sauce - making sure the tomato sauce covers the top of the veg
   
   
9. Reduce the oven temp 10 degrees (so to 150 in a fan oven) and pop the ratatouille in. It's ever so forgiving at this temperature, so cook for at least 40 mins, but if it needs to be in there beyond an hour it wont do it any harm (if you need it to sit in there longer, consider covering it if it starts to brown too much on the top)
   
   
10. Once done, serve with pasta, cous-cous, bread, whatever you like (I have also blitzed in with a hand blender to make veg packed pasta sauce - if you blitz it, kids will likely eat it with pasta and cheese, oblivious that they are eating quite so many vegetables)