Chili con Carne with Fresh Cucumber Salad
Chili con carne in the fast version: 30 minutes, with tinned beans and sweet chilli sauce instead of long simmering. Alongside it, a cucumber salad that catches the heat.
The sweet chilli sauce is the shortcut the dish rests on — it brings heat, sweetness and body in a single step. Any supermarket has it in the Asian aisle. Serve it with rice, nachos or tortillas.
Ingredients
- 300 g ground beef (beef mince)
- 1 onion, cut into strips
- 1 red pepper and 1 green pepper, cut into strips
- 1 punnet of fresh button mushrooms, quartered
- 1 tin of pinto beans
- 1 tin of kidney beans
- 200 ml sweet chilli sauce (the Asian kind)
- 200 ml water
- 2 tbsp oil (sunflower or similar)
- 2 cucumbers
- 4 tbsp herb dressing
- 1 jar of pickled vegetables (gherkins or a mixture)
- 1 bunch of fresh parsley
- Salt and black pepper, to taste
Method
- 1
The meat and vegetable base: heat the oil in a large pan and fry the ground beef until it is loose and crumbly. Add the onion, the mushrooms and the strips of pepper. Fry everything together for a few minutes.
- 2
Cooking the sauce: add the 200 ml of water and the sweet chilli sauce. Bring it to the boil and simmer over low heat for 5 minutes so the flavours concentrate.
- 3
Adding the beans: add the beans, drained, mix well and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.
- 4
The cucumber side: slice the cucumbers thinly and dress them with the herb dressing.
- 5
Serving: serve the chilli in individual bowls, scatter the chopped parsley over and offer the cucumber salad and the pickles separately — both belong alongside, not stirred in.