Gallo Pinto

I have become obsessed with rice and beans.  I would never have envisaged it but I love them.   Even Rissie who is notoriously Miss Fussy in our household told me today that I better put more beans on the shopping list and whatever that amazing sauce was.   Funnily enough eating all these beans has not ended up with catastrophes in the bathroom.  It seems they might be keeping the indestructible turd away.   We did have a momentary shiver of dread the other day when I heard Archie’s voice from the toilet saying, “Mummy we might have a problem,” but then a few seconds later I heard the toilet flushing and his voice correcting himself, “don’t worry mummy, no problem, it didn’t get stuck after all.”  Those are the sorts of words that instill me with motherly pride.  I am wondering if it is all the beans acting as kyptonite to the indestructible turd.  Maybe finally we have a stool softener?

At the risk of turning my stomach with the talk of stools I will return to waxing lyrical about my Gallo Pinto.  I loved my Gallo Pinto and I want to make it again tomorrow.   Only problem is that we are not due to visit the big smoke to do a grocery shop until Friday so we may have to wait.  Gallo Pinto is akin to the national dish of Costa Rica.  Basically it is a dish made up of rice and beans.   I wondered what the savoury taste was and I think it is particularly associated with Salsa Lizano; a sauce that appears on every table.  I can’t think of anything that it is similar to as it has a really distinctive sweet and sour taste.   Some say it is like Brown Sauce, some say Worcestershire Sauce but it does not remind me of either.  Regardless it is delicious and my Gallo Pinto was a revelation.

If I am cooking amazing dishes like this I can stop obsessing about the fact that I am perfecting the art of doing nothing.  But I shall save that for the next blog post as soon as I work up the energy to write it as I am very busy doing nothing.

It is incredibly easy to make as well.   Huge thumbs up from my little family of Costa Rican ferals.

Gallo Pinto

Ingredients:

Few splashes of Olive Oil

1 onion finely chopped

1 capsicum, stemmed, seeded and diced

2 cups of uncooked rice

1 can of kidney beans

1 can of black beans

Salsa Lizano – liberal splashes to taste

Salt and pepper.

Cook the rice.  Dice onion and capsicum.

Add oil to a deep frying pan and add the onion and capsicum.  Cook, stirring occasionally for 10 minutes.  The onion should be translucent and the capsicum soft.

Add the beans (and the juice from the can) and add a few splashes of Salsa Lizano.  Cook for a few minutes.

Add the rice and stir until well coated.  Season with salt and pepper and extra Salsa Lizano.

Serve immediately.  If I did not have children that I was trying to keep from going feral I suspect I would have eaten my lunch straight from the pan.  As I had impressionable children I served our lunch in bowls.