Hmm...that reminds me of all the dried mushrooms in the cupboard that need putting to good use. Got tons of dried chanterelles and cep (Boletus edulis), and some peppery boletes and fly agarics. I find the fly agarics, once they have been properly heat-cured thoroughly to make sure the ibotenic acid content (nasty neurotoxic stuff) is decarboxylated to muscimol, it works great for bringing out umami type flavours in meat dishes. Made a fantastic chickpea, kidney bean, steak mince and pasta chilli with them recently. Recycled the leftover chilli as cheesy enchiladas.
As soon as I find somewhere that stocks dried morels, I reckon I'm going to have to do another, only this time with braising steak rather than mince, as good as the mince version was.
Chilli ala Lestat:
Half a kilo of lean steak mince, or better yet, stewing/braising steak.
Two cans each of chickpeas, kidney beans and chilli beans.
Spices:
2-3 bay leaves
Some tabasco sauce, the extra-hot habanero version
2-3 smoked chipotle chillies, dried, 2 birds eye chillies, fresh, three if you have a mouth lined with asbestos. (watch it with these things, prepare them using gloves, I gut them with a surgical scalpel to remove the seeds, bite one of those things and you will know about it alright
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Mushrooms-here is what really makes a good chilli in my opinion.
Good handful each of dried cep, black morels (Morchella elata), tablespoon of finely ground fly agaric (these MUST be heat-cured overnight, using the lowest flame one's oven can manage, door open a little to allow them to dry properly, dry on a baking tin lined with foil, when cracker dry, store in a plastic tub, they will keep for years)
3/4 tablespoon of finely ground peppery bolete (Chalciporus piperatus...helpfully, these usually grow right alongside fly agarics whenever I find them, at least, when the latter grows under silver birch, although they do not share the affinity for pine that fly agaric does.
A good tub or two of shiitake, fried in butter at the last minute, same with oyster mushrooms to serve, don't cook all the oysters though, cook as needed, they do not keep long. Rehydrate the ceps, morels and chipotle chillies, toss them in when the chilli is nearly done, cooking the ceps especially, for too long will ruin the delicate mushroomy flavour.
1 tsp each of onion and garlic powder.
half to 3/4 of a medium onion, chopped pretty fine.
A big slug of 'devil's brown sauce', or if its not available locally, 'daddie's sauce', or HP sauce)
A tablespoon of worcestershire sauce.
A teaspoon of HOT chilli powder.
Brown the steak or lean steak mince, fry with the onion, then Its pretty much a case of add some water, including the water used to rehydrate the mushrooms and chillies, add the sauces and spices, chickpeas and kidney beans after draining them and washing them, toss it all in together in a big casserole pan, stew it all up for about 3/4 hour or so, add the mushrooms all at the last minute, fry up the shiitake and oysters with some salted butter, boil some pasta about ten minutes before serving in salt water, drain, wash pasta, and stir it all up, taking the bay leaf and those birds eye chillies out. Leaving those in could make for a nasty surprise if one bites into one! they are fucking lethal little buggers.
Need to get some more morels, used the last of them in said chilli.
Interesting factlet about chillies-despite the name 'birds eye', birds actually cannot taste chillies, they lack the transient receptor potential-vanilloid type I receptor that is required to bind capsaicin. Without TRPV1r, capsaicin is inactive. Gah...I would SO hate to be a bird
Serve in enchilada wraps, topped off with grated emmental/mozzarella, I quite like a mix of about 70/30 % of the two, respectively. And of course, ice cold beer. Perhaps a nice big shot of russian standard or grey goose to start and end the meal, served after pre-chilling for a short time in the freezer.
Close to serving time, add the juice of one lime, and a TINY bit of brown sugar, not much, just enough to offset the sourness imparted by the lime.
Save the zest, and use to cover a big bowl of cubed cantaloupe and watermelon, more lime juice, and a good sprinkle of brown sugar. Maybe some mint and dark chocolate chip icecream to go with it.
What am I eating now?
Just had 3/4 of a cold roast chicken, slathered in tabasco habanero sauce, and a couple of big glasses of malibu and cherry coke. Well...more like malibu, colored a bit with cherry coke
And a jug of maeng da thai kratom.
You seem to be lost in your own thoughts.