This recipe is actually one suggested by my good pal Rich, who has recently started Atkins for the second time. He kindly gave permission for me to publish his wonderful low carb fat burning chilli recipe.

For a hot low carb chilli – extra spice boosts the metabolism!

“Use fresh or dried chillies rather than powder.

Fennel seeds and coriander seeds! I just remembered that they are also
fantastic in their carb:fibre ratio. Here’s a recipe for your website that
I invented the other day. You know I’m not flexible enough to blow my own
trumpet, but it was fracking dellicious! (Net Carb figures in brackets.)

4 chicken breast pieces, no skin. (0) (can try with skin if you like, but
the seeds may not stick as well)
1 Green pepper, sliced lengthways (4.8)
200g Celery, chopped into bits about 5cm long. (3.6)
1 tbsp coriander seeds (0.6)
1 tbsp fennel seeds (0.7)
2 dried thai chillis (0)
2 tbsp lemon juice (2.6)
4 tbsp red wine vinegar (0)
2 tbsp roughly chopped basil (0)
A few splashes of olive oil (0)

Preheat the oven to 200.
Grind the seeds and the chillies together in a pestle and mortar until they
are a rough powder. Splash some olive oil in the bottom of a heavy bottom, oven pan and heat it on a high hob heat. Whilst it is heating, rub olive oil on both sides of the chicken pieces salt and pepper them well, then rub the seed mixture into both sides of them. Put the chicken pieces in the pan and sear them over the high heat until browned on both sides, remove from the pan. Throw the celery and green pepper into the pan and stir quickly, scraping the nice bits up from the bottom of the pan and mixing it in. When they start to cook, throw in half the red wine vinegar and continue to stir and mix it all up. After a minute or so, the pan off the heat, put the chicken back in and mix it all up, add the rest of the vinegar, the lemon juice and the basil. Stick it in the oven for 12 minutes.

Eat it. Absolutely delicious. ”

Seeing that I am on Atkins, I will be featuring more low carb recipes in the coming weeks / months. Maybe Burgermeister will become a useful resource for low carb / high protein meals, as well as burgers! No promises though, but do check back!

Ingredients for chilli con carne:

• Minced meat
• Chopped tomatoes (tinned are ideal)
• Kidney beans
• Chick peas
• Black eye beans
• Butter beans
• Chilli powder
• Cumin
• Garlic (3 or 4 cloves)
• Black pepper
• Salt
• Red and green sweet peppers
• Onions
• Red wine.

On Saturday I made actually made 2 chilli-con-carnes, one spicy and one mild. THis is what I used:

• 1600g (4 packets 400g from Tesco) lean Scottish mince.
• 4 medium onions chopped
• 2 red peppers
• 2 green peppers

In one chilli I added red peppers, just kidney beans, and more chilli powder,
more pepper, some mustard powder, some extra curry powder. This was the spicy chilli, and had a red look to it with the kidney beans and red sweet pepper. You can of course use red fresh chilli pepper also if you want a real good kick.

In the second chilli I added green peppers, all the other beans, plus kidney beans, and only a small amount of chilli, with more Indian spices, using a mild curry mix, some turmeric and paprika. As this chilli is mild, it is good to have a variety of beans to give a more varied texture to the dish.

Method:

Gently fry the onions and garlic in olive oil, chuck in the mince, stir a bit, keep on low heat, when brown, chuck in everything else, leave to simmer, add water and more wine to stop it burning, simmer for about 45 minutes. Serve with rice or jacket potatoes.