Chilli-con-Carne in the Rice Cooker

Still very cold, so after soup yesterday and with family round for dinner we figured a nice bowl of chilli would go down well with everyone.   Rather than messing about with pots, pans and keeping an eye of stuff as well the chilli was cooked in the rice cooker in the early afternoon with us safe in the knowledge we could just leave it to one side on “Keep Warm” to let the flavours build and develop until we were ready to eat…



So how was this enterprising dish made in our trusty Cook Japan rice cooker…
…first, using the “Braise” mode we cooked the onions and garlic…



…then in went the mince and some of left over ox cheeks we had from yesterday that didn’t make it into the soup…

                 

…with the meat nicely browned, in went some tomatoes, kidney beans, cheeky grating of chocolate, a glug of wine, salt and pepper, and some good old chillies and seasoning to give it that nice kick you want on a cold evening.



The rice cooker kicked into “keep warm” and it was left like this for about 5-hours until we were ready to eat dinner.  All that was left to do was make some rice in our other rice cooker (yes, we have 2 of these divine appliances), get out the bowls and chow down…



…with a couple of cold beers, what more could you want on a cold evening…



…and the best part is there’s a good healthy portion left for tomorrow when the flavours will be even richer – time set the rice cooker for a quick 10-15 minute cook cycle and then leave it on “keep warm” until ready to eat at lunch…