Ah, the things I can blame the wine for. Yesterday, I made a wicked bolognese sauce which, 24 hours later, I felt would pair nicely with a fruity Shiraz. But, instead, seeing the Shiraz in the wine store got me thinking, ‘I should pull a wine chilli dish together.’ So, after stopping to pick up some ingredients, this is what I did. Ultimately I wanted to bake this wine chilli in the oven, long and slow, with a nice thick sauce ready to start things off.
This would be great over potatoes, or as we ended up with, rice. Don’t forget the grated cheese. I used Asiago, but any cheddar would work well – whatever your taste runs to.
This wine chilli dish is even better the following day as it keeps maturing in flavour. From a heat perspective, if you feel brave, leave the seeds in all the jalapenos, but get there gradually, one at a time! If you want a little more thickness in your chilli, adding a pureed mashed potato or grated, uncooked potato will work well without hindering flavour. If the sauce seems too thick, add a little water.
Savoury Wine Chili Recipe
Ingredients
2 pounds ground beef (minced beef)
1 pound ground pork (minced pork)- ½ pound bacon strips - diced
1 big onion - coarsely chopped
4 medium jalapeño - chopped
1 head garlic - bashed and skinned, unchopped
3 large tomato
1 bunch kale
30 ounces tomato paste
2 tablespoons chili powder (chilli powder in British English)
2 tablespoons cumin
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons paprika - sweet Spanish
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon oregano- ½ teaspoon celery powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
3 small bay leaf (bay leaves)
1 medium red pepper - chopped- 3 ½ cups Shiraz
1 ½ cups vegetable stock (vegetable broth or vegetable bouillon)
1 can red kidney beans
Instructions
- Pour wine and stock into a medium pot and bring to a boil; reduce to simmer uncovered until reduced by half.
- Meanwhile, sweat beef and pork until cooked through in a dutch oven. Remove from dutch oven to large strainer. Add a little oil to the dutch oven, heat to medium-high, add bacon and cook until lightly browned.
- Add cooked bacon to the pork and beef mixture. Keep bacon fat in a dutch oven. Add jalapenos and onion to the dutch oven and saute until slightly browned; add half of the garlic, chilli powder, paprika, celery powder, cumin, and brown sugar and keep moving for 2 minutes. Add tomato paste; mix in and keep pushing for 2 more minutes. Add wine stock reduction, stirring until well mixed.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- In a food processor, pulse tomatoes until lumpy. Add kale and pulse until it is chopped (3 to 4 pulses).
- Add tomato-kale mix and all remaining ingredients into a dutch oven and bring to a strong simmer. Cover and place in the oven for 1 1/2 hours. Then reduce the range to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and cook for another 1.5 hours. Remove from oven and let it sit for 15 minutes if you can resist the smell!
