We love visiting our friends Mark & Martine, not least because we always eat well and it’s nice to have a late night soak in their outdoor hot tub after a day pottering about. We’ve known them since uni days (longer ago than needs to be mentioned). Back then, I’d never have pegged Mark as someone who’d get into cooking in such a big way, especially the baking and puddings! Then again, I’d never have put Pete and I down as such enthusiastic kitchen gardeners – our glee at our new greenhouse a couple of years ago verged on the demented!
One of the lovely meals Mark cooked for us last year was a chilli con carne recipe with chorizo and chocolate. It was delicious – the spicy flavour of the chorizo and the bitter-sweet cocoa gave the finished dish a wonderful, complex flavour.
Mark gave me a copy of the Nigella recipe he had used, with tips on some adaptations. I’ve made quite a few more tweaks of my own (including switching cubed beef shin for minced beef) and have re-written the method too.
It took me about 10-15 minutes to measure out and prepare all the ingredients, then about 30 minutes to do all the stove top steps before popping the dish into the oven for three hours.
Chocolate & Chorizo Chilli Con Carne
Ingredients
- 250 g cooking chorizo chopped into small pieces
- 800 g minced beef
- 2 medium onions
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2-3 tbsp oil
- seeds from a large brown cardamom pod
- 1 tsp ground cumin (see Notes, will use double in future)
- ½ tsp ground coriander (see Notes, will use double in future)
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon (see Notes, will use double in future)
- ½ tsp hot chilli powder
- 1-2 tbsp double concentrated tomato puree
- 400 g tinned red kidney beans
- 800 g tinned chopped tomatoes
- 40 g dark chocolate chopped
- water as required
Notes
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 150C / 300F.
- Finely chop the onion and garlic.
- Heat the oil in a large, heavy oven proof pan with a lid and sauté the onion and garlic over low heat until soft (about 10 minutes).
- Add the cardamom seeds and the cumin, coriander, cinnamon and chilli powders and stir thoroughly.
- After a couple of minutes, add the chorizo pieces and fry until they leak their aromatic orange oil.
- Add the minced beef in batches, to make it easier to brown the meat. Cook until all the beef is nicely browned.
- Add the tomato puree, drained kidney beans and chopped tomatoes and stir well. Add water at this point, if there’s not much liquid.
- Bring to a boil. Once boiling, stir in the chocolate.
- Cover and bake in the oven for 3 hours. (Check once an hour through the cooking time and add water if looking too dry).
Notes
I was pretty happy with the result, and Pete really loved it. The chorizo gave it’s unique, smoky flavour to the finished dish. The chocolate wasn’t obvious – it blended in completely but no doubt added to the richness.
My only change will be to double the amount of cumin and coriander, next time, and maybe up the cinnamon too, to give a stronger punch of that traditional chilli con carne taste.
If you have any chilli con carne recipes or tips, please do let me know in the comments below! Thanks!
Please leave a comment - I love hearing from you!7 Comments to "Chocolate & Chorizo Chilli Con Carne"
looks delish! I've made chilli con carne with chocolate before, but never thought to add chorizo — makes total sense. One of the best burgers I've ever had had pieces of finely chopped chorizo in it, which meant the whole patty was permeated with gorgeous paprika-spiked oils. I can just imagine the same effect in a chilli. Thanks for the recipe and tips!
PS was gutted to miss out on the Real Food Festival, looked like a blast! What's next on your agenda?
Thanks for sharing this. I've been looking for a good chilli recipe but often the American recipes I find have a lot of ingredients that are hard to find in my neck of the woods. This sounds like its brimming with gorgeous flavour.
Have a wonderful weekend ahead.
*kisses* HH
What a great recipe! The best chilli I have made used black turtle beans and has coriander stalks fried off in the soffrito, with the leaves added at the end with a squeeze of lime juice.
Wow, what an interesting combination of flavours – i love anything with chorizo, but would have never thought of chocolate as a partnering ingredient.
Yum yum! I always put chocolate in chilli, the chorizo is an interesting extra. Will try.
I can't say it's the images that are tempting me with this recipe but I LOVE chilli and chorizo so I'll give it a try. Thanks for sharing! =)
Sounds fantastic! Can't believe I've not noticed this one – I'm always in such a hurry around Christmas I've not really “done” that book properly.