It's that time of year when things are getting a little bit colder.
It's raining and I'm in my favourite kitchen of all.
This is my mobile pub as you do.
I'm going to show you how to make a delicious sausage and squash
chilli con carne.
Really simple to make, luscious to eat.
The kids love it.
You can do a big old batch of it as well.
And it's perfect for when the weather starts closing in and it's getting colder.
Great
for things like bonfire night, parties.
It's going to be a beautiful thing.
I've got the oven on.
I've got a pan on here.
Nice little casserole pan.
So first up, get a nice squash.
Now, the skin actually is very delicious.
But what I love about peeling it
is it kind of allows the squash to soak up all those beautiful flavours.
So once you’ve peeled it
just take the end off the squash.
Remember, the squash is round.
So obviously, be careful when you're cutting it.
And when it comes into slicing it like that,
just like keep your hands out of the way
and just gently angle it down like that and don't put your weight on too much.
Nothing kind of erratic.
Then we've got these little seeds here.
So I'm going to grab a little spoon and we can remove these seeds.
Now, these seeds you can save, you can dry
and you can plant out next year to grow more pumpkin, which is very, very cool.
So I'm using a butternut squash.
You can use any squash or dense pumpkin that you like.
Just slice it into little kind of
sort of one and a half, two centimetre chunks.
So I've got the butternut squash done.
Then it's the sausages. Look at that.
Four hundred grams of beautiful sausages.
Now, what I want to do
is just add a little bit of oil and I want to fry off these sausages.
I want to pull them out into little meatballs.
Going to get the sausage like that.
Pinch it with your hand like that, and it comes out like a rustic little ball.
Very, very simple. Straight in like that.
The better the sausages,
the better this dish will be.
As soon as we got a little bit of colour happening here.
What we can do is add some nice, fragrant things.
We want to get some spice happening.
So half a little cinnamon stick like this, just snap it.
That will go in.
That'll start toasting up and all that frying fat,
I’ll season generously with black pepper, which I like.
Then I'm going to use two little spice hacks here.
One is smoked paprika.
The smoked paprika gives you
that beautiful, smoky flavour like it's been cooked over a fire.
Then I'm using a little Cajun spice.
Now, these little kind of Cajun spices, jerk spices.
Ras el hanout curry powders.
These are quite genius, right? Because they're little blends.
So there's about like eight or ten spices in here.
Oreganos, all the peppers, you know garlic and onion powder.
So I'm gonna put two of these heaped teaspoons in.
It's just delicious. It's going to give it real length.
A really nice, savoury spice that I absolutely love.
Just toast that onto those lovely sausage meatballs.
Look at that. That's properly rustic.
And then I'm going to just highlight a little product that I kind of.
Right.
You can use onion, carrot and celery.
So the Italians will call that a sofrito.
And this is a frozen product.
So if you go to the supermarket, you get bags
of frozen carrots, celery, onions.
It's just a nice little hack.
I really like supporting the frozen veg.
I think it's genius.
It's brilliant for like just taking a handful, two handfuls, not wasting stuff.
I think for busy people that want to cook lovely food,
these little cheats are amazing.
You know, it's not just about frozen peas.
I want to use like two or three cloves of garlic.
That's how you're going to get that really deep, comforting flavour.
Nice little trick, actually.
Using balsamic vinegar.
A couple of tablespoons. Right.
If you think about the sweetness in the veg that we're dragging out,
this will give it a nice little kind of tang
and it'll give it the most delicious depth of flavour and a gorgeous colour.
Look at that.
What I love about this dish is it's a family favourite.
Everyone loves it.
Like you’re using sausages,
cheap as chips, you know, go for the best ones you can get.
We're getting loads and loads of veggies into this dish.
And also, it's like an amazing excuse to get more beans in.
Right. Because we expect to have beans in a chilli con carne.
So any beans you like... white beans,
cannellini beans, borlotti beans,
butter beans, black-eyed peas, kidney beans, even chickpeas.
So I’m gonna use a little bit of rosemary in here,
rosemary is a great herb, really good with butternut squash, sausage.
It's a lovely savoury herb, so easy to grow.
So just a couple of sprigs, just finely chop that. What I love about making
casseroles, chilli con carnes like this, is it's got a really nice flow.
You add the sausage, you add the spices, you add the garlic
and the veg, you know, it just gets more and more interesting as time goes on.
Look at the colours,
the orange and the green and all the kind of gnarly bits of sausage.
Absolutely beautiful.
Now we go in with the wet stuff
in the form of lovely tinned tomatoes
and some lovely kidney beans.
Use any beans you want.
I'm using kidney and black beans.
Go in juice and all. That little liquid
is perfect for creating an amazing sauce.
Then some lovely tomatoes is going to make it sweet and delicious.
And look if you wanted to do a veggie version of this or a vegan version of this,
that's fine. Just pull out the meat.
And I would sort of suggest using some fresh and dried mushrooms
to get that umami, that depth of flavour.
Just let it come to the boil, give it a little season with salt
and then pop it into the oven.
Now, what's nice
about popping it in the oven is it will continue to simmer and cook.
So essentially stew, but from the top it's going to bake or roast.
So we call that braising, right?
That means you're going to get colour on here.
You're going to get reduction of liquid,
but concentration of flavour it’s going to be amazing.
So I'm very happy with that. Let's get that in the oven now.
Normal oven, 180 degrees
Celsius, 350 Fahrenheit, and then I'll show you what to do next.
While that's cooking, please click the like button and give us some love.
And don't forget to subscribe.
Oh, and remember to turn on that notification bell
so you know what's happening. Now back to the recipe.
So it's had an hour and a half and it's just been blipping away.
Have a little look at that.
I mean, it's a real picture. So you can see how it's reduced down.
Oh, it looks so comforting.
So I want to give you a little tip on extra deliciousness.
Okay.
It's a good one,
potato masher.
So if you just go to one little side of the pan, just mash one side.
All right, so what's that doing?
This is breaking up
some of the sausage, some of the beans and some of that lovely butternut squash.
Right.
So just do it to about a third of this pan.
And what does it do?
It gives you a creaminess
and it gives you a real smash of deliciousness and sort of unctuous flavour.
So once we've finished doing that, we fold it through with all the chunks again.
So that, I believe, is how you get really incredible
texture and... oh it smells amazing.
It smells amazing. This is when we have a little try.
Oh, that is so good. A little
extra virgin olive oil, not as an oil, but as a kind of ingredient.
Right.
And you get that lovely grassy, fresh flavour
and it gives it the most wonderful sheen.
And on the floor is my little dog, Conker.
Who’s got very wet. He's chilling out.
But he's very excited about this sausage chilli con carne. A little bit of balsamic.
I know we've put some in already, but that's cooked away.
But just a little thimble of vinegar.
Any vinegar can often lift a ragout.
That's beautiful.
I'm going to pop that back in the oven
just for a little bit while I do the rice.
We're going to go in with some rice.
That same mug, like a typical kind of cup of tea mug.
I'm going to fill this up twice.
If you wanted to
add some nice flavour, you know, you could take a little mixture of herbs.
Right.
And just put that in there as well and get a lovely, lovely sort of fragrance
and flavour to it.
So this goes in
and we'll boil that for 12 minutes.
By that time everything's going to be perfect.
Let’s get some nice serving bowls..
What shall I do it in? Let’s do it in that one.
Looks really lovely.
Let's have a little look at this
rice, it’s had about 12 minutes.
It goes from boiling and then that noise stops.
And that's when you normally now it's just lightly frying.
So that's a good sign.
So then we can take out
the herb.
That's the brilliant thing about a herb, man they've done their job.
And just use a fork or a spoon or something, just to fluff it up.
Can you see how light and fluffy that is? Every time a winner.
So I like that method.
Smells amazing.
Let’s just portion up a little bit. I love rice.
See the little flecks of herb in there.
Let's get our lovely chilli out.
Look at these beautiful chunks.
So chilli con carne, but not as you know it.
And then for me, just a lovely little bit of yogurt
in there.
Some pepper and just a little olive oil. You can finish that with
a little soft herb like coriander if you want.
For me that is beautiful comfort food for this time of year
when the weather's closing in, you get epic flavour in there and texture.
It's delicious.
Sausage chilli con carne.
Super simple.
Get it all going. You can double the recipe.
You can triple it.
It's not like spicy chilli spicy,
like my little seven year old would have no trouble with that at all.
It's very mild.
It's very layered.
There's lots of nice little surprises.
But perfect for this time of year when things get a little bit miserable.
But this is delicious.