30 Minute Chili With Slow Cooked Flavour

Source video by Brian Lagerstrom on YouTube. This recipe was adapted with strict source-fidelity rules and is marked for human review.

Brian Lagerstrom's 30 minute chili is built on flavour accelerators: oven grilled beef mince, fire roasted tomatoes, chipotle in adobo, and beef bouillon paste. The original is a quick hob chili, but the same ingredients translate beautifully to a slow cooker, where time does the unifying work instead of careful tasting at the end. Expect a thick, beefy, smoky chili with creamy kidney beans. Serve with sour cream, diced white onion, sharp cheddar, and crushed oyster crackers.

Ingredients

• 1200 gbeef mince (80/20 chuck), pressed flat onto a tray for grilling

• 1 largewhite onion, diced as small as possible
• 20 ggarlic, 5 to 6 cloves, crushed

• 50 gtomato paste
• 2 tinstinned chopped tomatoes, drained
• 425 gtinned tomato sauce (passata style)
• 800 gfire roasted tinned tomatoes, blended with the chipotles
• 2 pepperschipotle peppers in adobo sauce, blended into the fire roasted tomatoes

• 60 gchilli powder
• 30 gpaprika
• 10 gground cumin
• chilli flakes

• 20 ghot sauce
• 30 gsoft brown sugar
• 30 gWorcestershire sauce
• 15 gcider vinegar
• 30 gbeef bouillon paste
• 10 gfine salt

• 4 tinstinned red kidney beans, drained

• olive oil

• soured cream (add late)
• white onion, small diced (add late)
• mature cheddar cheese, grated (add late)
• oyster crackers or cream crackers, crushed (add late)

Method

1. Tip the beef mince onto a baking tray and press it into a flat, even sheet. Slide under a hot grill on a rack about 20 cm below the element. Grill on high for 8 to 10 minutes until well browned on top and just cooked through. This builds the deep beefy colour that a slow cooker cannot.

   ~10 min

2. While the beef grills, dice the onion as finely as you can and crush the garlic. Drain the chopped tomatoes. Tip the fire roasted tomatoes and chipotles into a jug and blitz with a stick blender until smooth.

   ~8 min

3. Heat a large frying pan or the searing insert of your slow cooker over medium heat. Add a generous glug of olive oil, then the onion, garlic and a pinch of salt. Sweat for 5 to 6 minutes until fully softened. Slow cookers will not soften onions properly, so do not skip this.

   ~6 min

4. Add the chilli powder, paprika, cumin and chilli flakes to the softened onions. Stir and toast for 20 to 30 seconds until fragrant. Keep the heat moderate, chilli powder burns and turns bitter quickly.

   ~1 min

5. Tip the onion and spice mixture into the slow cooker. Crumble the grilled beef into small pieces (large chunks can feel gristly with a short cook) and scrape it in along with any juices and fat from the tray.

   ~5 min

6. Add the chipotle tomato puree, tomato sauce, drained chopped tomatoes and tomato paste to the slow cooker. Stir well, scraping any spice from the pan in too.

   ~2 min

7. Stir in the hot sauce, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, cider vinegar, beef bouillon paste and 10 g salt. Add the drained kidney beans and stir everything together.

   ~2 min

8. Cover and cook on Low for 6 hours or High for 3 hours. The chili should be thick and glossy. If it looks too thick at the end, loosen with a splash of water.

   ~360 min

9. Taste and adjust. First check salt. Then balance sweet and acid: if it tastes sharp from the tomatoes and vinegar, add a little more brown sugar. If it tastes flat, a touch more vinegar. Finally adjust heat with extra hot sauce.

   ~2 min

10. Ladle into shallow bowls. Top with soured cream, finely diced white onion, a generous handful of grated mature cheddar and crushed crackers.

    ~2 min

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