Ground Beef Chilli with Kidney Beans

This beef chilli is more like an authentic Mexican chilli dish than the last one I published (chilli con carne), since I added kidney beans and a generous amount of tomato puree (tomato passata will do instead), and I served the dish with yoghurt.

I used dried kidney beans, so they were soaked overnight, and cooked for twenty minutes the next morning, until soft.

I browned 500g of Scottish ground beef (minced beef) in some sunflower oil, for twenty minutes stirring frequently. After fifteen minutes I added diced red onion, and batoned carrot.

After the twenty minutes I added three quarters of a pint of boiling water, plus four green chillies (deseeded and diced), the garlic, the diced whole red pepper, and four squirts of tomato puree.

The dish was simmered for an hour under glass at a low heat. Then I mashed the carrots a little, and added diced mushrooms (in this case both white and chestnut varieties), and some shredded spinach leaves. At this point I added the kidney beans to the dish, and stirred them through. Simmered under glass for another hour. After which I added the beef and vegetable stock, plus generous pinches of basil and oregano. Simmered for another ten minutes or so.

Served with basmati rice, which was first component to be on the dish. I added two dessert spoonfuls of yoghurt along the inward edge of the rice, and then added the beef chilli. I used no cheese topping on this occasion, but often I add some grated cheddar. Delicious either way!