So a few days ago Musa posted a link to a chili recipe, which sounded kind of delicious. So, well, I made it.

I’ve got to say, it was hard finding all of the ingredients here. For one thing, they don’t do black beans in Spain. They didn’t even pretend to sell them in Carrefour (admittedly, it’s a Carrefour Express near me); I finally found a package of dried black beans (because a can of ‘em would be too easy) at an Eroski supermarket. And of course, they don’t call beans frijoles here, but rather alubias. Actually, finding chipotles wasn’t too hard — I just went to El Corte Inglés and looked in their (fairly large) Latin American section. (They also sell black beans.)

Of course, I don’t know if I’ve ever cooked with dried beans before. I soaked them for like four hours, and then boiled them for half an hour, and they still ended up slightly hard; I looked it up and one would think that this would’ve done the trick. They didn’t taste bad — just not soft like I kind of think you’d want in a chili.

The main problem, however, was the chili peppers. I went into a few grocers’, and finally found one that sold hot peppers. The recipe calls for 1 red pepper, 1 jalapeño, and 1 habanero. Well, I wasn’t seeing habaneros, but I saw those green peppers that sort of look like jalapeños (I realized later — they’re serrano chilis; these are the ones I would buy in bulk from H Mart and use for sauces at school). So I got two of those, and I got two of the chilis the guy at the grocer said were the spiciest, although he didn’t know which they were. Looking at wikipedia, I think they were Thai Peppers, which means they’re actually less spicy than the called-for Habaneros. (Sadly, I left my chart of Scoville Units at home. I’m not kidding.)

Anyway, the point is that I wasn’t using the hottest chilis possible, but I still ended up with a very (very) spicy chili. I shared it with Juliette and her boyfriend, Sylvain, and I think all of us enjoyed it but wished it was less spicy. (Today I ate it with yoghurt, which makes a big difference.) We ate it on a cornbread I made (my flatmates seem to be really impressed by baking — even something as simple as cornbread), which at least turned out exactly as it should, without measuring cups.

I did buy a measuring cup, though, today. Hooray!

Anyway, judge for yourself as to the pepper: