Beef, Black Bean & Chipotle Rice Bowl

Ingredients

• 500 g beef mince, 15–20% fat
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 150 ml beef stock, hot
• 2 x 400g tins black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 2 onions, finely diced
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 2 tbsp chipotle paste
• 200 g frozen sweetcorn
• 300 g long grain rice
• 2 limes, cut into wedges
• 15g coriander, roughly chopped

Method

1. Pat the mince dry and season generously with salt and pepper before it hits the pan — water means steam, and steam means no browning.
2. Heat a splash of oil in a large stainless or cast iron pan over high heat. Brown the mince in two batches, 4–5 minutes each, pressing it flat and leaving it alone until deeply caramelised in patches. All at once and the pan crowds, water comes out, and you've boiled the meat instead of browning it. Tip the browned mince into a bowl, leaving the dark stuck bits in the pan — that's flavour.
3. Drop the heat to medium and add the onions with a pinch of salt. Cook for 6–8 minutes, scraping up the fond as they soften, until translucent and just starting to catch at the edges.
4. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds, no more — just until fragrant and pale gold. Burnt garlic turns the whole dish bitter, so watch it.
5. Stir in the chipotle paste, cumin and smoked paprika and bloom them in the oil for 60 seconds until fragrant and the paste darkens a shade. Raw spices taste dusty; bloomed spices taste of themselves.
6. Return the mince to the pan. Pour in the chopped tomatoes and hot beef stock — the stock is what breaks the tomatoes down so they taste of summer fruit, not tin. Bring to a simmer and cook uncovered for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is thick, glossy and clinging to the meat.
7. Stir in the black beans and sweetcorn and cook for a further 5 minutes until everything is piping hot. Taste, season, taste again — adjust the salt now, not at the table.
8. Meanwhile, cook the rice in well-salted boiling water per packet instructions — it should taste like the sea. Drain and fluff with a fork.
9. The mince mixture (without rice) freezes well for up to 3 months — cool fully, portion into bags and freeze flat.
10. Spoon the rice into bowls, ladle the smoky beef and beans over the top, scatter generously with the coriander and tuck a lime wedge in at the side of each bowl for squeezing over — the squeeze of lime lifts everything you've just built.