Chilli Beef with Broccoli

CSIRO Recipe - Tex Mex Chilli Beef

In a bid to get healthy after what feels like a tough quarter of 2020, we’re experimenting with the CSIRO total wellbeing program. It only officially starts on Friday for us, but we’re trying some of it out and experimenting. Some of their recipes are fantastic and we’d like to add them as part of our rotation even after we finish the twelve week program. All credit for this delicious chilli beef recipe goes to the CSIRO, although we have rewritten it to match the format of our site and adjust for what we actually cooked.

This recipe is a dinner recipe. The entirety of this dish is the whole dinner meal. I.e., there no entree / main / dessert format, but it is this dish. We had it last night and were satisfied. As we had a spare snack left over as part of our plan, we were also able to have dessert (our plan stated fruit and cheese in this instance).

Ingredients

For four servings (two dinners for two people):

  • Olive Oil (2 teaspoons / 9g)
  • 1 medium onion of any type, finely chopped (they said 3/4 but we used one)
  • Minced or crushed garlic, 1 teaspoon (5g)
  • Beef mince, low fat, raw (500g) – we used the ‘Extra Lean’ variety
  • Chilli powder, 1 teaspoon for a nice spice, 2 tsp for a spicy nice spice (circa 2g) or to taste
  • Dried paprika, 2 teaspoon(s) (6g)
  • Ground cumin, 3 teaspoon(s) (5g)
  • Dried oregano, 1 teaspoon(s) (2g)
  • Tomato paste, no added salt, 3 tablespoon(s) / one small tub of the store bought one (75g)
  • Beef liquid stock, salt-reduced, 1½ cup(s) (375ml)
  • Tomatoes, diced, canned, any type, 1 400g can(s) (400g)
  • Red kidney beans, canned, drained, 1 400g can(s) (drained) (240g)
  • Extra Ingredients, 1 serving Broccoli, ½ head(s), chopped (170g)
Method
  1. Heat olive oil in large pan over medium heat.
  2. Cook the onion for 2-3 minutes until softened.
  3. Add garlic.
  4. Add beef. Stir to ensure you break up any lumps with the back of a wooden spoon. This should be either for 5 minutes or until the beef is browned (it probably took us about 10 minutes or so).
  5. Stir in the powders (chilli, paprika, cumin and oregano) and cook for 1-3 minutes. It should become fragrant.
  6. Add the tomato paste, stock, canned tomatoes and drained beans.
  7. Stir and bring to the boil.
  8. Reduce the heat and simmer for 40 minute or until thickened and cooked through.
  9. With about 10 minutes left of the simmering beef, it’s time to steam the broccoli. Place the broccoli in cold water (to cover between 1/2 and 3/4 of the broccoli florets) in a microwave safe dish, covered, for approximately 4 mins. Checking along the way, depending on your microwave’s strength, if it is not cooked, put it back in for another 3 minutes. Once cooked, drain it and place it on top of the chilli portion. It should turn out soft and lovely but not mushy or boiled-tasting.
  10. The CSIRO’s recipe also advises that to add an authentic Mexican taste, you can add a little bit of avocado and light sour cream. However, we did not do that and enjoyed it as it was in the photo.Note: According to the CSIRO, each serve of this recipe provides the following units (in CSIRO standards) : 1.5 Meat & Protein, 2.2 Vegetables, 1 Healthy Fats & Oils, as well as 1573 kilojoules (375 calories) and 41.8g protein.We also note that the CSIRO has several versions of this recipe floating around, it just depends on the daily requirements in the plan.