Chili Sin Carne

Intro

Uh... I love Chili. Once I believed that it is not possible to make good Mex chili without meat. Now I know how wrong I was. And please note that I'm mix eater, so I love meat dishes also. This is my take on how to do this classic dish as vegetarian. Idea of this dish was to make chili taste to shine, make it bit sweet and also same time sour. As in many vegetarian dished, the key is to soak that flavour in to TVP and in this case also to beans. This can be served as side or as main with rise. Normally I use basmati rise for this dish, but probably any rise is ok.

Pre requirements:

• some oil

• 1 onion chopped

• 2-3 garlic cloves chopped

• 1-2 strong chillies seeded and chopped (dish should be strong. I normally use 1-2 habanero/scoth bonnet/bird eye. Its possible to up heat using chili powder later on the cook. Also I have found that best chillies come with using mix of differnt chili flavours.)

• 1-2 tps of sugar

• 1-2 tps of salt

• 1/2 tps of smoked paprika powder (I use La Chinata hot powder).

• 1 tps paprika powder (not hot)

• 1 tps of cumin powder (in Finland its mostly called as jeera powder)

• 1/3 - 1 tps of chili powder (depends on how hot fresh chilies where. You can also replace fresh chillies totally by using chili powder. To note here is that best result most likely comes from using many different chilies).

• 400ml can of chopped tomatoes (I use Mutti Dolpa, but better is to have whole tomatoes canned and then smash them while cook).

• 400ml of water.

• 2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar (I prefer orginal Modena, but probably many others will work also).

• 2 dl of Textured vegetable protein (TVP)

• 380g of coked kidney beans in salt water (I recommend to use pre cooked as there are some health issues regarding kidney beans and you really need to know how to cook them safely. But if you know how to do it, then go for it and dish will be better.)

Build:

• Use frying pan to fly onion and fresh chilies.

• Add chopped garlic to pan at the end. Make sure it does not burn and that way turn bitter.

• Add canned tomatoes and 400ml water.

• Add all spices.

• Add vinegar and sugar.

• Add TVP.

• Cook on shimmer about 1/2 - 1 hour. Taste and add more salt, chili powder etc if not tasty enough.

• Add beans and let them soak for min 5 minutes (note: if using dried or fresh beans adjust accordingly).