Author: Stuart

This is a recipe that I nabbed from Jamie O. I’ve made it a bit simpler by letting Mr Tesco provide the ingredients where possible.

1 level teaspoon cayenne pepper, plus extra for sprinkling

1 heaped teaspoon ground cumin, plus extra for sprinkling

1 level teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus extra for sprinkling

olive oil

1 onion

Packet of frozen peppers or 2 mixed-colour peppers

Packet of sweet potato

Frozen garlic, 2 teaspoons worth or 2 cloves of garlic

1 bunch of fresh coriander (30g)

2 fresh mixed-colour chillies

3 x 400g tins of beans, such as kidney, chickpea, pinto, cannellini

3 x 400g tins of quality plum tomatoes

lime or lemon juice, or vinegar, to taste

• Roast the sweet potato on a baking tray with oil and a sprinkled teaspoon each of of cayenne pepper, cumin and cinnamon.
• Peel and roughly chop the onion. Halve, deseed and roughly chop the peppers, then peel and finely slice the garlic.
• Pick the coriander leaves, finely chopping the stalks. Deseed and finely chop the chillies.
• Meanwhile, put 2 tablespoons of oil in a large pan over a medium-high heat, then add the onion, peppers and garlic, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring regularly.
• Add the coriander stalks, chillies and spices, and cook for a further 5 to 10 minutes, or until softened and starting to caramelise, stirring occasionally.
• Add the beans, juice and all. Tip in the tomatoes, breaking them up with the back of a spoon, then stir well.
• Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and leave to tick away for 25 to 30 minutes, or until thickened and reduced – keep an eye on it, and add a splash of water to loosen, if needed.
• Stir the roasted sweet potato through the chilli with most of the coriander leaves, then taste and adjust the seasoning, if needed.
• Finish with a squeeze of lime or lemon juice or a swig of vinegar, to taste, then scatter over the remaining coriander. Delicious served with yoghurt or soured cream, guacamole and rice, or tortilla chips.

It’s a basic and humbling recipe that permits a lot of flexibility. It’s super healthy and tasty. You can make it as spicy as you want!

I was trying the same process of using the Ninja blender and nut bag which produces a smooth liquid, but I grabbed the wrong extract from the drawer and put 2 teaspoons of lemon extract into the horchata.

There’s no recovery from this. I tried adding sugar, banana, more almond milk, but it all tasted of lemon. To say I’m bitter about wasting good ingredients is an under statement.

Needless to say, the lemon extract is placed out of easy access now!

Now where are my glasses…?

I swapped the almond milk from Alpro Almond milk to Rude health.

The almonds were from Grape Tree (toasted whole blanched almonds)

The taste is less sweet as a result and the jury wasn’t as impressed.

I also tried 3 teaspoons of ground cinnamon rather than sticks as I initially tried Chinese cinnamon standing in with the rice overnight but before I blended it I tried a bit but it’s far too fiery.

Another change was using the smaller blender on my ninja blender which resulted in a finer liquid with less bits. Using a nut bag also was better than a sieve.

A mixed bag of results. The liquid is finer but not such a good taste as recipe one.

Using the same recipe with some slight tweaks:

I used 50g Tesco Dark Brown sugar and 100g of caster sugar rather than just 150g caster sugar to see how the rich and treacly sweetness affects the recipe.

I bought pre-toasted almond flakes (100g from Tesco) rather than buying blanched almonds and toasting them myself.

I was keen to remove even more bits for a smoother taste.

Let’s see what happened

After straining the horchata twice through a sieve I attempted straining through muslin but the bits blocked it up. After giving up with the muslin I used a fine sieve. The final result was much smoother than the first attempt but for one of the tasters it was still too bitty.

How to make it smoother? That is going to be a challenge!

The taste was great and approved by all.