Truly, love is delightful and pleasant food, supplying, as it does, rest to the weary, strength to the weak, and joy to the sorrowful. It in fact renders the yoke of truth easy and its burden light … Check This Amazing Recipe: Bruno Loubet’s bean and vegetable chilli

How to Make Bruno Loubet’s bean and vegetable chilli

Preparation time:

less than 30 mins

Cooking time:

30 mins to 1 hour

Serves:

Serves 6-8

Dietary:

Vegetarian

Ingredients

For the toasted spices

• 1½ tsp ground coriander
• 1½ tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp sweet smoked paprika

For the vegetable base

• 125g/4½oz onion
• 3 garlic
• 125g/4½oz celery
• 70g/2½oz fennel
• 1 large carrot
• 375g/13oz button mushrooms
• 1 red chilli
• 12g/½oz fresh root ginger
• 1 red pepper
• 100ml/3½fl oz rapeseed oil
• large pinch sea salt

For the rice

• 100g/3½oz flageolet beans
• 260g/9½oz brown basmati rice
• 1 bay leaf

To finish the chilli

• 100g/3½oz tomato purée
• 200g/7oz piquillo peppers
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 x 240g tin red kidney beans
• 100g/3½oz brown sauce
• 2 tbsp vegetarian Worcestershire sauce

To finish

• 40g/1½oz chocolate
• 10g coriander
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. For the toasted spices, in a dry frying pan over a low–medium heat, cook the spices for a minute – taking care to ensure you don’t burn them (you just want to extract the essential oils). Set aside.

2. For the vegetable base, add the onion, garlic, celery, fennel, carrot, mushrooms, chilli, ginger and red pepper to a food processor. Pulse in 3-second bursts for 30 seconds, until you have 2–3mm dice. This may need to be done in batches depending on the capacity of your food processor.

3. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat and gently fry the vegetables, toasted spices, and a large pinch of salt for 10 minutes.

4. For the rice, in a separate large saucepan over a high heat, bring 550ml/1 pint water to the boil and cook the flageolet beans for 10 minutes on a full boil until just tender. Lift the beans from the pan using a slotted spoon but keep the cooking liquor on the heat as you will use it to cook the rice. Reserve the beans.

5. To finish the chilli, add the tomato purée, piquillo peppers and tinned tomatoes and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the kidney beans, cooked flageolet beans, brown and Worcestershire sauces and leave to cook for a further 5 minutes.

6. While the chilli is cooking, cook the brown rice in the flageolet bean cooking liquor with the bay leaf and simmer for 15–20 minutes, covered with a lid. Depending on the variety of rice, it may take a few more minutes. Once cooked, drain off any excess liquid and transfer to serving dishes.

7. To finish, stir in the grated chocolate. Taste and season with salt and pepper as required. Serve the chilli with the chopped coriander and brown rice alongside.