Cuban black beans with rice & avocado

 

Here is my second Cuban-inspired, vegetarian dish of the week. I adapted this recipe from Bon Appétit at Epicurious, and from the comments of the readers.

It’s a lovely, heartwarming dish, which is also nutritious. Indeed, black beans are an excellent source of molybdenum, and a very good one of folate and dietary fibre. It’s also a good source of copper, manganese, vitamin B1, phosphorus, protein, magnesium and iron.

The quantities in the recipe serve 2-3 people. This dish is ready in 50 minutes or so.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 small onion, peeled and chopped
• ½ medium red bell pepper, deseeded and diced
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
• ½ teaspoon of ground cumin
• 1 ½ cups of precooked black beans (I cooked ahead dried black beans using this method). If from a tin, rinsed and drained.
• ¾ cup of water
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar
• ½ teaspoon of Demerara sugar
• Salt
• Pepper

To serve

• White rice
• Fresh coriander
• A small ripe avocado, pit removed, peeled and diced

Preparation

In a cooking pot over medium-high heat, add the olive oil, onion, bell pepper, garlic and cumin, and cook stirring often until fragrant and the onion is soft and translucent. Add ½ cup of black beans, and mash them with a fork. Add the remaining black beans, stir in the water and vinegar, and add the bay leaf. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer covered, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes or so for the mixture to thicken (but keep an eye on the liquid level, adding a bit more water if it becomes too thick towards the end of the cooking time).

Stir in the sugar, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove from the heat, and let rest covered for 5 minutes before serving.

Serve with white rice (I make the rice while the beans are simmering), and garnish with fresh coriander leaves roughly chopped and diced avocado.