A little bit about this recipe…..
Prep: 90 mins | Cook: 240 mins | Serves: 4 (or many more if you batch cook) | Cost: £ about 50p per person
I love batch cooking chilli and freezing it in portions depending on which house it’s heading to. This is a deliberately mild base chilli – I don’t add any chilli powder or flakes at all. Everyone in our family has a different heat tolerance, so we add chilli sauces at the table instead. This recipe is a guide rather than exact quantities. It’s all about using what you have.
Ingredients
- Several packs of beef mince (You can use beef and pork mince. This is cheaper and just as good.)
- Small beef roasting joint or any cheap cut of beef, cut into bite size cubes
- Bacon chopped into 1 cm pieces (bacon miss-shapes works well, again much cheaper than rashers)
- Jar of frankfurter sausages sliced
- Chorizo chopped into small cubes
- Onions
- Garlic crushed (At least 1 bulb)
- Tinned chopped tomatoes (You will need quite a few tins)
- Any type of tinned beans:
Kidney, haricot, butter beans, chickpeas, baked beans, lentils – anything lurking in the cupboard. - I normally work on a rough ratio of: 3 tins of tomatoes to 1 tin of beans.
Method
- Heat a little oil in a large pan.
- Add your mince and brown off. (You might need to do this in batches)
- Remove with a slotted spoon into a large bowl.
- Add another splash of oil and brown off your beef chunks. Remove and add to mince.
- If needed add another splash of oil, cook off onion, garlic and chorizo.
- Mix all your cooked ingredient together and split between 2 large pans.
- Heat both pans and gradually start adding all the remaining ingredients equally between both pans on a low heat.
- As this starts to reduce, this when the blag comes in. Just keep checking and add more beans and tomatoes. Once you are happy with the combination, turn heat to very low.
- I like to cook this until the beef chunks are really tender. Remove from heat.
- Have another one 🍷
Blags, Tips & Tricks
- You really can throw anything in this.
- I also normally have precooked rice vacuumed in freezer.
- No preservatives as you really do know what has gone into your meal.
- Storage……
- Cool completely before freezing.
- Portion into labelled tubs or vacuum bags.
- Freezes well for up to 3 months (although I have stuff in my freezer from 4 years ago…..just saying).
- Reheat gently on the hob or in the microwave until piping hot.