I love my chillies. Hot fresh ones wake me up and get my body going when I am tired and lethargic; softer dried ones provide a subtler background warmth. Pair the right chillies with the right food, and the results can be intoxicating. Today’s recipes combine the deeply savoury, smoky flavour of dried chipotle chillies, which are now easy to find online and in larger supermarkets, with the sweet flavours of prawns and corn in a fast stir-fry, and with some classic Mexican spices in a sweet-savoury stove-top meat sauce. Think of it as the Mexican equivalent of an Italian ragu.
Black noodles with prawns
I buy King Soba black rice noodles in bulk online: they are delicious and provide a strong, vibrant contrast with most other ingredients. Serves four.
2 corn cobs
1-2 dried chipotle chillies
200g fine beans, topped, tailed and cut in half
250g black rice noodles
3 tbsp sunflower oil
1 large red onion, peeled, halved and thinly sliced
3 fat cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1 handful peanuts
450g prawns
1 tbsp fish sauce
Juice of 1 lime
1 handful mint leaves, roughly chopped
Tear the leaves and any threads from the corn cobs and stand them upright in a wide bowl. Moving around each cob, cut off the kernels into the bowl: don’t shave too close to the cob, because the starchy core doesn’t taste great.
Tear open the chipotles and discard the seeds and stem. (Their heat varies, as does their size, so if you are confident you love heat, use both chillies, or use one to start with, because you can always add the second one at the end.) Finely chop the chilli. Steam the beans for four minutes, until tender but still with a little crunch. Lift out and then use the steaming water, topped up if needed, to cook the noodles as per the packet instructions, then drain, rinse in cold water, toss with a teaspoon of oil and set aside.
Heat the oil in a wok on a high flame, then stir-fry the onions, corn and chilli for a few minutes. Season generously, add the garlic and peanuts, and stir-fry until the garlic starts to go translucent. Add the prawns and stir-fry for a few minutes, until they turn pink and look a little caramelised around the edges; the corn should by now have also taken on some colour. Taste, add more chilli if you want more spice, then add the fish sauce, lime juice, beans and noodles, and toss to heat through. Add more lime or fish sauce to taste, scatter over the mint and serve in deep, warmed bowls.
Mexican chilli picadillo, Korean-style
This classic Mexican stew balances the sweetness and body of warming spices and fruit with chilli heat and savoury meat. Here I serve it in refreshing lettuce “cups”, which is more Korean in style. Make the pickle an hour ahead. You can make picadillo with just one meat, but I like a mixture. Serves four to six.
300g minced beef
300g minced pork
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
4 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 large apple, peeled, cored and diced
2 chipotle chillies, deseeded, soaked in boiling water and finely chopped
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp ground cloves
70g raisins
2 tins plum tomatoes
60g green olives, stoned and chopped
2 tbsp red-wine vinegar
350ml beef stock
A little brown sugar (optional)
60g blanched almonds
For the pickle
1 cucumber, finely sliced
2 banana shallots, peeled and finely sliced
2 tbsp caster sugar
80ml cider vinegar
To serve
1 big handful chopped chervil or parsley
4-6 baby gems, washed, leaves separated
Hot sauce
Wedges of fresh lime
Toss the pickle ingredients in a bowl, season and refrigerate for an hour.
Combine the meat in another bowl and season generously. Sweat the onion in two tablespoons of oil over a medium heat for five minutes, then add the garlic, apple, chilli, spices and raisins. Cook for five minutes, stirring, until the onions go translucent, then add the rest of the oil and stir in the meat. Turn up the heat a little and fry, breaking up the mince into the smallest crumbs possible. After five to eight minutes, once the meat is browned, add the tomatoes, olives, vinegar and stock, bring to a boil, then simmer gently for 20-25 minutes. Taste for seasoning; add a pinch of brown sugar if you want a little sweetness. Toast the almonds in a dry frying pan and roughly chop. Stir the nuts into the meat, turn off the heat and sprinkle with chervil.
Lay out the lettuce on plates, spoon over the picadillo and serve with lime wedges, hot sauce and the pickle.
And for the rest of the week…
Make the most of corn while it’s still in season: use any spare cobs in Yotam’s brilliant recipes from this week or last. Alternatively, I like to fry uncooked kernels with olive oil, garlic, allspice and cinnamon, and serve with fresh lime, creme fraiche and chilli sauce – mouth-watering and simple. The noodles are fab in soups: make a stock with leftovers from a roast and transform into a Vietnamese pho by garnishing with lots of herbs (and I mean loads), chilli and beansprouts. Picadillo is sensational stuffed into rehydrated ancho chillies; it’s also great on jacket spuds, rice, with spaghetti or in homemade burritos. Use up excess pickle in sandwiches or salads.
• Thomasina Miers is co-owner of the Wahaca group of Mexican restaurants.
