I recently got round to getting Thomasina Miers' book Mexican Food Made Simple. I'd already made a few recipes from it, including this one, using a combination of her website and recipes copied onto scraps of paper in Smiths! So it was nice to be able to try this one out properly using almost all the right ingredients, including chiles de arbol from Otomi our local Mexican shop in Clifton. It's a chile con carne made with big chunks of stewing steak instead of mince, which you slow cook along with a load of spices, tomatoes, chorizo and borlotti beans, then pull into shreds with a fork. It takes a bit of time to get the ingredients together, but then you just pop the whole thing in the oven for 3 hours and leave it to do its thing. I was a bit wary about how spicy it would come out and went easy on the chilli, but the result was spot on - hot enough to have a kick, but just within my tolerance levels with a bit of creme fraiche (a substitute for sour cream as I already had some in the fridge).
I'd intended to make some guacamole to go with it, but cut into the avocado to find it'd gone brown. I managed to salvage a few chunks and mixed it up with some tomatoes, fresh coriander, lime juice, olive oil, sugar and salt to make a kind of salsa instead. Together with some simple boiled rice, the whole thing made a great meal.
