Recipe of the Week #7: Gallo Pinto

A couple years ago we were lucky enough to visit Costa Rica. With nearly every meal while we were there, we had gallo pinto, a Tico rice and beans. The wife got tired of it eventually, but the kids and I (mostly I) loved it every time. I went looking on the web for a recipe recently and found this recipe, which I modified because I'm lazy.

Gallo Pinto

Ingredients:
1 can black beans.
6-8 sprigs cilantro (coriander leaf) fresh or frozen, not dried!
1 small or medium onion
1/2 small red or yellow sweet pepper (optional)
2 cups (700 ml) chicken broth or water
1-1/3 cups (350 ml) white rice
1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) salt
1 Tablespoon (15 ml) vegetable oil
1-3 Tablespoon oil to fry the Gallo Pinto

Directions:

Chop cilantro, onion, and sweet pepper very fine.

Add 1 Tablespoon oil to a large pan and sauté the dry rice for 2 minutes over medium high flame then add half of the chopped onion, sweet pepper and cilantro and sauté another 2 minutes. Add water or chicken broth, bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat to simmer until rice is tender (20-35 minutes). This is also the recipe for Tico rice used in other favorites like tamales.

Sauté the rice and beans together in vegetable oil for a few minutes until hot.  Sprinkle with a little fresh chopped cilantro just before serving.

Once the rice and beans are cooked you can also refrigerate or freeze them. Make up small batches of Gallo Pinto when you want it by simply sautéing them together.

Notes:  This made several meals worth for just the two of us.  My favorite is when we'd have breakfast for dinner, scrambled eggs, gallo pinto, sausage, fruit.  Life is good.

Wife's rating:  ***(out of 5)  She just doesn't get it.
My rating:  ****1/2 Food can make you happy.