Sunday, January 18, 2009

Fusion cooking

I am a cooking genius. Well, that's stretching it a bit. Quite a lot actually. But I did invent a new recipe yesterday. Apparently it's a fusion of Mexican, Indian and Italian - a chilli con carne and mango lasagne. I know it sounds a bit weird, but bear with me - it actually tasted great! Still to work out the quantities to put on here, but the basic recipe is...

Ingredients
Beef mince
Large onion
Dried mango
Tomato paste
Tin of chopped tomatoes
Tin of kidney beans
Schwartz chilli con carne dried spice mix
Mango chutney
Sour cream and creme fraiche mixed together
Lasagne sheets
Oven at about 200 degrees C

Chop and fry a large onion in olive oil. Fry some lean beef mince (at least 500g) until browned all the way through. Season with salt and pepper and squeeze on a load of tomato paste - stir in. Empty a regular sized tin of chopped tomatoes and half a tin of water. Chop up a small packet of dried mango and add that to the mince. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 20-mins. Add a regular sized tin of kidney beans and a packet of chilli con carne Schwartz mix (ok, I cheated with that part - if I put this in a cookery book obviously I'd work out the 'official' way). Anyway, you'll probably need to add some more water so it's not too gloopy. Bring to the boil again and simmer for another ten minutes. Ish. You might need to stir quite a bit as the spice mix for some reason makes it burn a bit to the bottom of the pan.

Get a lasagne dish. Layer the chilli mix, mango chutney and sour cream and creme friache mix, then lasagne, then chilli, mango chutney and the cream mix, then grated cheese.

Put in the oven for about half an hour. It might be a bit sloppy but is great with a green salad. Promise!