Here we go. My Jamie Oliver project has begun. I arrive home from work at around 6 PM if I need to go shopping for dinner first. So I had to find a somewhat quick recipe for today. The choice was green chili. I was excited to try it out because it had a few ingredients I don’t use very often; mint leaves and dried sage. I really like chili but just not too much, I still need to be able to actually taste to food. And this dish turned out quite hot, but I liked it a lot. It was borderline too hot, but maybe that’s just me. Sillas can eat much hotter food than I can so I added a few slices of fresh jalapeño on top of his dish, but that was too hot even for him. So I would leave that out unless you can really handle your chili.

I served the chili with a few naan bread I had warmed in the oven. The dish is a great alternative to regular chili. It’s lighter and fresh. I will definitely cook this chili again.

The ingredients;

olive oil

800g mince pork



1 teaspoon dried sage

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 onions, peeled and roughly chopped

3 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced

2 green peppers, deseeded and roughly chopped

2 jalapeño roughly chopped

4 large ripe red tomatoes, chopped into small chunks

1 romaine lettuce, leaves washed and spun dry

A small bunch of fresh mint

4 spring onions

2 naan bread

1 lime

Cream fraiche, to serve

What to do;

Put a large pan on a high heat and add a little olive oil. Add the pork mince, dried sage and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Use a wooden spoon to break the meat up a bit and stir it about, then cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally. Add your onions, garlic, peppers and jalapeño, stir everything together, then fry for 15 minutes on a high heat until any liquid from the pork has evaporated and everything is starting to turn golden. When it looks good, stir in your chopped tomatoes and half a glass of water. It’s supposed to be quite dry, not stewy, so don’t add too much water.

Turn the heat down to medium and let it simmer for 10 minutes or so while you wash and roughly chop up the lettuce. Pick the leaves from the bunch of mint and roughly chop them. Trim and finely slice your spring onions.

When you’re ready to serve your chilli, warm your naan bread in the oven at 180°C for a few minutes.. If you want to give it a nice fresh edge, you can squeeze in the juice of a lime. Stir in half your chopped mint.

Spoon some green chilli in a bowl. Top with your chopped lettuce and a dollop of cream fraiche. Sprinkle over the rest of your mint and spring onions – and a few jalapeño slices if your feeling good.