Brazilian Beans

Last nights dinner garnered the comment “best thing you’ve ever made!”  While that might not be exactly true (I wonder what IS the best thing I ever made???), it sure was a nice compliment, especially coming from someone who tends to fear healthful meals!

Brazilian Beans, adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe:

This dish was absolutely as easy to make as the recipe makes it sound.  You just boil the beans with the beets, sauteeing up a bit o’ flavor at the end.  The one thing it takes is TIME – the dried beans need to simmer for at least 1 hr 45 min.  But, hey, how hard is it to boil beans?!

I did make one change to the recipe, and that was at the flavor step at the end.   You see, I have these cubes of sofrito in the freezer:

The sofrito cubes have been there since LAST SUMMER (!).  Never heard of sofrito?  It was new to me, too!  Sofrito is a condiment of Latin cuisines consisting primarily of peppers, onions, and garlic.  It is chopped together into a fine sauce, like a salsa.  It can be made with tomatoes, but the Puerto Rican version, which I made, did not.  I learned of it on a Food Network show last year, and subsequently received the key ingredient – aji dulci peppers – in my farm share (aka CSA).  This is what they look like:

These sweet li’l guys are about the size of a golf ball, and they are a key ingredient for sofrito.  So naturally, I had to try this dish!  Now, finding the other key ingredient, culantro (which is not the same as cilantro) was another challenge!  I finally found it at the Hi Lo Foods in Jamaica Plain (thanks to a tip from the Web! – so I continue to spread the hint!).  

The recipe I used was reprinted in my CSA’s newsletter, but the source is here.  And let me tell you, the recipe made a boatload!  Hence, the frozen cubes the better chunck of a year later!  Now, I know what you’re thinking – who’s got time to make sofrito?  Well, as you can see, just a little investment of quality time with your chef’s knife and your Cuisinart can last for months.  But, if you still aren’t convinced, sofrito is sold in jars in the international section of the grocery store.  I’ve not tried it myself, but I wouldn’t expect it to pack the same flavor POW as the homemade version.

To complete my version of Martha’s Brazilian beans, I added *3* sofrito cubes to the black beans during the second hour of cooking in lieu of the sauteed cilantro and garlic - marvelous!  And soooooo easy!

I served this dish with the beets, absolultely gorgeous contrasted with springy green peas, alongside leftover cooked barley, instead of the white rice.  And let me tell ya, cooked barley – YUM!  Whole grain goodness!  I recently unloaded myself a 16 oz container of this joyful little grain from the bulk bins at my local crunchy grocer, and I’ve become a big fan.  The flavor is not to far from the light smoothness of oats, and the texture, quite chewy.  I definitley plan to incorporate it into my cooking!

The whole thing was topped with just a bit of shredded sharp cheddar, white of course and from Vermont – only the best!  Cabot’s 60 aged 60 days, to be exact.  It didn’t take much cheese to complete the dish, which all in all, it was a deliciously nourishing meal that left both my tastebuds and my tummy happy.  Quick, healthy, and delicious – this one gets filed in the mental stack of favorites.  I definitely recommend it!

Tagged as: beans, beets, dinner, favorite