Beef and mushroom chilli with sweatcorn cornbread muffins
This year I’ve had more success than last year growing chillis, so it was high time I made a chilli with them. I also managed to grow a tonne of herbs, so I thought I’d make use of them too.
The traditional accompaniment to chilli (not that this is a real chilli, my Texan friends would turn their noses up at it) is cornbread. These cornbread muffins are fully of roasted corn and hefty.
You will need
For the chilli
- Diced beef steak, aboutt 300g, shaken in plain flour
- An equal volume of mushrooms, quartered
- A heaped teaspoon of blackpepper corns roughly ground
- A heaped teaspoon of cumin seeds roughly ground
- A heaped teaspoon of tomato paste
- A heaped teaspoon of english mustard (I was having a use up)
- About 200ml of beer
- A tin of blackbeans
- A big handful of mixed herbs - I had marjoram and thyme
- A clove of garlic
- Chillis (I used 3 long cayenne)
Cornbread muffins
- 140g of self-raising flour and polenta mixed (roughly half and half)
- 200ml of buttermilk
- An egg
- A good pinch of salt
- A sweeatcorn
- A tablespoon of butter, melted
- A handful of grated strong cheddar
- A tablespoon of maple syrup or honey
Do
The chilli
- Brown the beef in oil in a heavy based casserole dish on a hgh heat
- Add the cumin, blackpepper and galic clove
- Sizzle a bit, add the mushrooms and turn the heat down
- Keep everything moving until the mushroom have cooked though and tarted to release their liquid
- Add the rest of the ingrediants, give it a good stir, turn the heat down and pop a lid on
- Simmer on a low heat for an hour or two making sure it doesn’t go dry.
- Best left to go cold and reheated as the muffins are in the oven
The muffins
- Pop the oven on 200oC
- Pop the grill on high
- Stick the corn under grill, keep turning until it nicely blackened on all sides
- Pour a little butter into each hole in the muffin tin (I have a 6 hole muffin tray)
- Whisk all the other ingrediants (it’s surprisingly liquid)
- Slice the corn off the cob and and stir through the batter
- Split the batter between the muffin holes and bake for about 20 minutes or until slightly risen and golden on the top
Result
I’m shattered, pictures over words.
