This is another fantastic recipe for our friends at Wild Cornwall that you can cook at any time of year, but that’s particularly good to cook over fire in the summer months – whether that’s a barbecue, or a campfire for a bit of cowboy authenticity!
For this chilli con carne recipe Rupert picked the Hunter’s BBQ Sauce and Fragrant Rosemary Sunflower Oil from their range of seasonal foraged and home-grown condiments, oils, vinegars, relishes and rubs. The BBQ sauce is deliciously smoky and rich, with sweetness from the raw Trelonk honey balanced with the earthy savouriness from their wild alexanders sea salt.
You can of course cook this chilli con carne inside using your hob and oven, but we like to cook it on the barbecue, sealing and browning the beef shin on the grill over the embers and creating the chilli con carne in a cast iron pot or Dutch oven, using the lid of the barbecue to add a bit of smoky flavour to the dish. Here’s how to make it:
INGREDIENTS
3 tbsp Wild Cornwall Hunter’s BBQ Sauce
Wild Cornwall Fragrant Rosemary Sunflower Oil
3 Red Onions
500-600g Beef Shin (could use skirt, chuck, braising steak etc)
2 Peppers
2 sticks of celery
1-2 carrots
Half a Chilli – orangey green one
Garlic
1 tin of beans (kidney beans, cannellini beans, etc)
Bay Leaves
Spice Mix – smoked paprika, cumin, cumin seeds, coriander, oregano
Sherry vinegar
Beef stock
For the dressings:
Small bunch coriander
Small bunch parsley
2 cloves garlic,
Sherry vinegar
Wild Cornwall Fragrant Rosemary Sunflower Oil
Jar mint sauce
Pot Greek yoghurt
METHOD
Start by seasoning the shin of beef with salt all over. Keep it whole, then chop down into diced cubes later on after initial sealing and browning to go into pan.
Put it straight onto a hot barbecue to get loads of colour on it.
Whilst that is happening, prep the veg:
Chop the onions into large chunks and dice the carrots and celery a bit smaller into 1cm cubes. Chop the peppers into big chunks.
Put a large cast iron pot or casserole on the bbq to warm up. Add a slug of Wild Cornwall’s rosemary infused sunflower oil and when it’s hot add the veg to the pan with the bay leaves. Season with salt, and put it back onto the barbecue or hob
Sweat down the veg whilst the beef finishes colouring (turn it so that it’s coloured on all sides)
Add the spices in and 3-4 tablespoons of barbecue sauce, with a glug of vinegar.
This will create a sweet/sour paste in bottom. Add brown sugar if want to sweeten it more.
Take the beef off the grill and dice into large cubes.
Add to the pan and top up with beef stock, to around half way or just covering the ingredients. From this point it could take take 2-3 hours cooking it low and slow in the oven (150-170 degrees C) to break down all the collagen and ligaments, or slightly less time over the heat of the barbecue.
Leave the lid OFF the pot, but put the lid ON the barbecue.
If you want a punchy smoky flavour then place a piece of fragrant wood (apple, cherry, beech etc) that’s been soaked in water onto the grill rack off the barbecue off to one side.
Come back to it after 45 minutes to 1 hour, and put the lid on the pot for the remaining cooking time.
Add beans at this point, roughly half way through the cooking time.
You’re looking for the beef shin to pull apart and be nice and soft. Top up the pot with beef stock if needed, or put a bit of baking paper over it (called a cartouche) to stop the steam from escaping and the chilli from drying out too much.
Make green dressing with coriander, parsley and garlic, vinegar and rosemary oil. Finely chop a couple of cloves of garlic. Season with a touch of salt, and add a glug of vinegar. This recipe uses parsley and coriander, but any soft green herb will do. Chop roughly. Add Rosemary oil. Mix.
The Mint dressing is simply a jar of mint sauce mixed with Greek yoghurt ad seasoned with salt.
Serve with white rice – basmati or long grain. You could put more beans or root veg in to reduce or replace the beef. It’d also be great served with tacos.
Top with green dressing and mint yoghurt, and enjoy!