It’s Bonfire Night and it’s proper cold up North. You need food in a bowl that will keep you warm. You need a recipe that you can scale up for family and friends. You don’t want to scrimp when it’s cold, you want food that can fuel a hibernation.
What you want is chilli. If you read a lot of cookery books, chefs like to mess about with recipes and add flourishes to show off. Some of these can be great, mind-blowing, taste sensations and others leave you with a messy kitchen and a burnt mouth. This is not that recipe.
This recipe is basic but good. Very good. The best thing about it is that once you’ve done it once you can tinker with it. If you don’t like spicy food cut down or out the chilli. If you want it eye-wateringly hot, crank it up. You can make a really mild batch, freeze it and then add more spice to taste when re-heating.
Most of the ingredients are stuff you’ll have lurking about already. I’ve become slightly obsessive about the marjoram as I was only using it for chilli but I’ve learnt that it’s part of the oregano family and it goes really well with mushrooms. Thanks for the husband for discovering that one.
So make a pan of this, serve with rice, sour cream and piles of cheese. Then get comfy and have a wee nap on the sofa. You deserve it.