plonq: (Bork Bork Bork)
[personal profile] plonq
Tonight on "Cooking with [personal profile] plonq" ("vegan" chilli edition):

I had not been anticipating the fierce wind and snow when I planned to make chilli today, but I could not have asked for more appropriate weather.

I started off by making a mirepoix (sort of) by coarsely chopping a couple of small yellow onions, two stalks of celery, and one red bell pepper. I tossed that into a pot with some vegetable oil and chopped four cloves of garlic while the veggies sweated a bit.

I let them cook down while I dug out the next couple of ingredients, then scraped the garlic into the pot and let it get to know the other ingredients for a minute or so before I squeezed in the last of our tube of tomato paste, and a teaspoon or so of anchovy paste.

I stirred that for a minute or so to cook the raw flavour off of the tomato paste and then dumped in an unseemly amount of chilli powder, some ground cumin, and about a half-tablespoon of dark cocoa powder. As soon as that was starting to want to stick to the bottom, I reached for the can of tomatoes -- and caught myself just in time.

I'd totally forgotten the "meat".

I fetched the two packages of Impossible ground burger from the fridge and hastily dumped them into the pot along with a splash of more oil. Then I spent the next few minutes stirring it and breaking it up until it was cooked through before I resumed where I'd left off earlier.

Once the "meat" was done, I poured in a large can of chopped, fire-roasted tomatoes, a small tin of chipotle peppers with their sauce, and a large can (drained and rinsed) of red kidney beans. I swished some water into the cans from the tomatoes and peppers and added that but it still seemed a bit dry, so I mixed up about 300ml of vegetable bouillon and stirred that in along with a bit more chilli powder, cumin, and some ground black pepper.

I let everything simmer together for a few minutes before tasting it. Other than adding a few good shakes of hot paprika to give it a bit more punch, I didn't think it needed anything. I'm glad that I didn't add any salt - it got enough from the bouillon.

I think it might have been improved by the addition of a couple of bay leaves, and/or some fine-chopped fresh chilli peppers. But overall, it was good. Paired well with the honey cornbread I made as a side dish.

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