Cook with Us #26 - Roasted Root Vegetable Chilli

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Hello everyone!

Today I am submitting my first entry to the wonderful Cook with Us: a foodie contest run by @chefsteve, @offoodandart and @pandamama. Season 3 has just started and when I saw that the first topic was a root vegetable dish I knew I had to cook something delicious to enter this week.

As a European I have always had access to root vegetables, and as time has gone by I have noticed that a wider variety of them are becoming more readily available in the shops. Growing up in the UK we experienced extremely cold winters so root vegetables were a staple in my family's diet, creating plenty of hearty, filling and warming dishes to see us through to brighter days! I live in Spain now and while the winter season is not as harsh it can still get pretty chilly! We even experienced some snow last year which was a surprise to say the least.

One of my favourite comfort dishes to eat by far is chilli. It is an extremely versatile dish and everyone has their own (sometimes secret!) go-to recipe. Over the years I have been perfecting my recipe and the sweet flavours of roasted root vegetables compliment this chilli sauce really well. Read on for the recipe!

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Roasted Root Vegetable Chilli

INGREDIENTS (serves 6: first half served in potato skins, second half served with rice the following day)

3 large sweet potatoes
3 parsnips
3-4 carrots
1 whole bulb of garlic (+3 cloves to make the sauce)
1 red onion
1 white onion
10 cherry tomatoes
1 red pepper
Handful of Twilight chilies (approx. 10)
2x 390g tins of chopped tomatoes
1x 400g jar of red beans
1 small tin of sweetcorn
1 tbsp of tomato paste
1 vegetable stock cube
2 tbsp of cumin seeds, toasted and ground
1 tbsp of paprika
1 tsp of dried cilantro
A pinch of cayenne pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
Freshly ground Himalayan pink salt
Freshly ground mixed peppercorns (red, green, black and white)
Fresh parsley leaves, for garnish
Fresh moringa leaves, for garnish

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To begin with I preheated my oven to max (gas mark 6-7) to roast my root vegetables. I cut up the parsnips, carrots and red onion into chunks. I usually leave all vegetable skins on to ensure all the nutrients are preserved but this time I peeled the parsnips as the skins were quite scratched and damaged. Once these were all prepared I tossed them in a little olive oil, salt and pepper to coat and put them on a lined baking tray in the oven for 45 minutes, turning them after 20 minutes until they were evenly roasted.

I washed and dried the sweet potatoes thoroughly and pricked them several times all over with a fork to allow for optimal roasting. To prepare the garlic bulb I simply chopped the tops of the cloves off to reveal them, drizzled oil, sprinkled salt and pepper and wrapped it tightly in baking paper AND tin foil. I find this ensures the garlic does not burn whilst in the oven. Both the sweet potatoes and the garlic roasted in the oven for an hour.

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While all of the delicious root vegetables were happily roasting away I made the chilli. I started off by caramelising the onion, then added the Twilight chilies and garlic until softened and they released their aromas. Next I added the dry spices to cook those off, then the cherry tomatoes for a short while and finished with the tinned tomatoes, stock cube, salt and pepper. Once it came to the boil I added the red beans and sweetcorn and left it to simmer for approximately 50 minutes.

At this point the kitchen was smelling amazing with everything cooking simultaneously, receiving top olfactory compliments from my family in the living room. Wait until they taste it, I thought!

Once the chilli was almost ready I squeezed the garlic out of its skins, scraped out the sweet potatoes and added those into the mix, ending with the roasted parsnips, carrots and red onion.

To serve I spooned the chilli into the sweet potato skins and garnished with freshly picked parsley and moringa leaves. Voila!

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As this is my first entry to the contest I must include photo proof to show I made this dish - I hadn't realised this at the time of cooking so I am hoping that providing these screenshots of my shoot will be acceptable and my entry is valid!

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Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this post!

If you are interested in participating in this contest check out the Cook With Us blog, you will find the season 3 calendar of topics here. Happy cooking!

Gardeningchef