Video Transcript

Today, we're going to make a quick and easy Moroccan chili, vegetarian style. If you've never had African food, this is something you definitely need to try. They've got one of the most flavorful cuisines around. So here's what we're going to need. We've got two cloves of garlic, diced, one onion, chopped. We've got a can of chickpeas that have been drained and washed. We've got two Roma tomatoes that have been diced, two carrot sticks sliced, about a cup of raisins. We've got two stalks of celery that's been sliced and then the zest of one lemon. For the sauce we're just going to use a basic one cup of chicken broth, a half a can of tomato paste and then to spice it all up we're going to use two tablespoons of brown sugar and then some African spices. Now I'm using my own proprietary blend of African spices, my African bush pan African blend but if you don't have that or if you don't have any sort of African blend, you can use just an equal mix of cumin, some coriander, some cloves, a little Fenugreek and then spice it up with a little bit of cayenne pepper and then salt. Then you can add also a pinch of ginger as well. Now as I said we're making vegetarian chili today, but you can easily adapt this for meat. You can use lamb or beef, even chicken if you like but again we're going to do vegetarian today. So what we do to start is just add our onions and garlic into the pot. I've got about two tablespoons of olive oil that have already been heated and we're just going to saute these for just about a minute until you can see the onions getting translucent and while they are sauteing, just put a pinch of your African spices in there. Next thing, once you see that the onions are translucent we're going to put our chickpeas in. This is our sort of meat in this dish, so just put them right in there, again with a pinch of your African spice mix and just let that cook for about a minute more. So after about a minute we're going to add the rest of our vegetables starting with the tomatoes, the celery, you've got your carrots and then we can add our raisins as well. And once you get all your vegetables in there, just saute it for about a minute or two, just really to start it up, get a little flavor in them, nothing big, get them, you know the tomatoes start to sort of break down. Okay so now we're going to start putting our flavor in. I'm adding all the lemon zest, so the zest of one lemon. Then we've got about two tablespoons of our African spices right in there and then our two tablespoons of brown sugar right in there. And what we're going to do is we're going to let this caramelize so it's going to saute again for another, you know, minute, two, three, just so we can start getting our flavor built and that's really what stews are all about and chilis are all about is just building flavor. So at this point we just have to start adding the liquid to make this stew and to make the chili. So what we're going to do is that cup of chicken broth we'll pour right in and then that half a can of tomato paste, just put it right in there. Then we'll just stir just to incorporate the tomato paste. So we'll bring it to just a slow boil. We don't want it to come to a full boil, that would just ruin some of the flavor so just really watch it and right when it starts to bubble, then you can turn the heat down to a simmer. So as you can see it's coming to a slight boil at this point we're going to turn the head down to a medium low. Then we're just going to cover it and let it cook for about 15 to 20 minutes and then uncover it and let it cook for another five minutes. Okay, so what we did is that we cooked it for about 25 minutes with the cover on and then for the last five minutes we cooked it again at a low heat with the cover off just to get rid of the excess moisture and to thicken the sauce up a little bit. As I said, I use my own African spices that happen to have salt in it. At this point would be a great time to taste it, test it and see if you need salt and salt as needed. A quick and easy vegetarian Moroccan chili. I'm Jason Bailin from Whipped and Beaten Culinary Works.