Dehydrated Chilli Beans with Corn Chips
This delicious vegetarian version is one that fools carnivores: they’ll have no idea it’s meatless and will happily scarf it down! I adapted it from a classic recipe by using vegie mince instead of beef (which you can, of course, use instead), increasing the kidney beans, and reducing/omitting the oil/bacon. I’ve retained the dark chocolate and haven’t tasted rancidity after more than six months storage at room temperature, because excess fat is blotted away during cooking.
Chilli beans for dinner at sunset on Hinchinbrook Island… perfect!
The key to the amazing flavours is the long, slow cooking time and the homemade spice powder, made in the traditional way using dried ancho and pasillo chillies. These are widely available in the US but less so in Oz: look in specialty shops, markets or online. The chillies are expensive but you’re making about 10-14 meals, and the other ingredients are all reasonable, so the final cost is still a tiny fraction of commercial freeze dried hiking meals.
This is served with corn chips – the crunchy texture is a welcome change from the usual soft hiking meals – but the versatile sauce goes equally well with pasta, rice or wraps.
(See our dehydrating tips on par cooking and dehydrating pasta and rice).
And as always, we have sneaky hacks for folk who want quick results! You’ll find them at the end of this post.
INGREDIENTS:
1kg vegie mince (TVP)
3 onions, finely diced
1 knob garlic, finely chopped
3 red capsicums
Hot chillies to taste, finely chopped
1 tbspn tomato paste
1 ½ tbspn oil
2 cups red wine
4 cups stock
7 deseeded whole anchos, stems removed
100g dark chocolate 90% cocoa, broken into squares
1 heaped tbspn dark brown sugar
4-5 400g cans red kidney beans, drained and rinsed*
Plain corn chips
Shelf stable cheese (optional, to sprinkle over in camp)
*In our experience, tinned beans rehydrate better than those cooked from raw.
For the spice powder**:
3 dried pasillo chillies, deseeded, stems removed
2 tbspn cumin seeds
1 cinnamon stick
1 tspn salt
1 tspn black pepper
1 tspn oregano
1 tspn thyme
2 tspn sweet paprika
2 tspn vegetable stock powder (beef or vegetable flavour)
**SNEAKY HACK: Use commercial sachet chili con carne or nacho seasoning/spice mix, dry TVP, and other tricks - scroll to end to find full cheat sheet!
Method for Authentic Chili
First make the spice powder. Tear 4 of the anchos and 3 pasillos into pieces and dry roast, turning frequently until smoking. Remove from pan. Dry fry the cumin seeds until fragrant. Grind chillies, cumin seeds, cinnamon stick and salt in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle and place into a bowl. Add other spice ingredients and mix well.
For the sauce, first slice the flat sides from the capsicums and place under a hot grill until blackened. Remove with tongs into a bowl and cover with a plate to steam until cool enough to handle. Peel and discard blackened skins. Finely chop the capsicum.
Place 1 tbspn oil in a large non-stick frypan. Add vegie mince, brown well over high heat and remove to a bowl. Add ½ tbspn oil and fry onions over medium-high heat until translucent, then add garlic, hot chillies, roasted capsicum and spice powder. Return mince as well. Stir well and fry over medium heat until aromatic, a minute or two, then add tomato paste and fry off for another minute longer, scraping pan if it’s not non-stick to prevent burning.
Add wine, whole deseeded anchos, chocolate, sugar and just enough stock to almost cover.
Bring to a boil, stirring, then reduce heat to low and simmer very gently, covered, for 2 hours.
Stir regularly and top up with a little stock if it gets too thick.
Partway through, when you see oil on top, take off the lid and drag a few paper towels across the surface and around the edges to blot away all the oil.
After two hours, add beans and simmer for another 30 minutes (you may need a larger pot). The sauce should be very thick; simmer uncovered if it seems runny.
Taste and correct seasonings.
Place meat mix in a colander to drain and collect any liquid. Remove the whole anchos and puree with the liquid. Reduce the puree in a frypan to thicken further (you may not need to do this). Once very thick, spread thinly on silicone sheet-lined trays to dry separately.***
***You can instead mix the puree with the veg and mince and dry them together if you prefer. But drying the puree separately and powdering it, rather than mixing the wet puree in with the beans and drying them together, makes for a richer, less watery sauce when rehydrating.
Place one serve into a bowl and weigh (remember you’ll be adding corn chips in camp), then place double the amount onto a dehydrator tray and mark with a teaspoon. This is your WET MIX A (TWO SERVES, for us, about 600g).
Fill remaining trays and dehydrate at 63 C (145F) until dry. Check partway through and break up any large lumps.
When dry, weigh the mix on your marked tray: this is DRY MIX B (two serves: for us, about 200g). Place it and the rest of the mix into a larger bowl, roughly breaking any chunks still left.
Powder the ancho puree bark in a spice grinder and place in a bowl.
Packaging
Place 2 serves (we use about 100g) of corn chips into a ziploc bag and seal.
If using, wrap shelf stable parmesan for two in greaseproof paper or biodegradable cling wrap.
Into each vacuum bag, place:
DRY MIX B
Even portion of ancho puree powder
Corn chip Ziploc
Wrapped parmesan (if using)
Vac seal, stopping the vacuum before the corn chips get crushed.
On the outside, write amount of water needed to rehydrate (A-B = W ml, for us usually about 420-450 ml).
In Camp (see rehydration tips)
Open vac bag and remove corn chips and parmesan.
Boil “W” ml water and pour into bag. Stir thoroughly, close and place in a cosy for 25 minutes.
When ready, sprinkle over parmesan and scoop up with corn chips.
Yum!
Sneaky no dehydrating hacks
It’s possible to buy cooked dried beans but they are crazy expensive. If you don’t want to dehydrate anything or spend the extra money, omit the beans and use extra TVP. Don’t use ordinary dried beans: they won’t rehydrate.
Use commercial sachet chili con carne or nacho seasoning/spice mix rather than making your own.
Into each bag for two place
dry TVP
chili con carne or nachos spice mix sachet appropriate to amount of TVP
Ziploc containing ½ tbspn cocoa powder, plus 1 tspn onion powder, garlic powder and cayenne (optional)
Ziploc containing corn chips
Cling wrapped parmesan (if using)
Vac and/or seal bag.
In camp:
Open bag and remove ziplocs, spice mix sachet and parmesan. Pour over boiling water at recommended rate, sprinkle over spice mix and your Ziplocs with extras, and stir thoroughly. Seal, put in cosy and rehydrate 20 mins.
When ready, sprinkle with parmesan and scoop up with corn chips!
