Frejoles

I really love frejoles which means beans in Spanish. However I can’t go to a Mexican restaurant when I want some Mexican food so therefore I am going to make it myself and also help other people like myself that would feel limited this way. I feel good about doing something to help out whenever I can.

I stay away from canned beans because of the high salt content so I am always using the dry beans and it is a lot of work but worth it. All you need is a pressure cooker and an immersion blender which I think is awesome.

I used 1 cup of beans. Pintos are the norm and I really love them also but if you are bored you can also try mayocoba, black, pink, cranberry, Roman, and adzuki. I washed these and added 1 pinch of baking soda which starts to soften the bean. I rinse the beans some more in case I added too much baking soda which can taste pretty yucky.

I put the beans, 4 cups of water, 1 whole dried red chili pepper, 3 dashes of adobo, 1 pinch each of marjarom, culantro, cilantro, oregano, 3 cloves of garlic crushed. 1 pinch each of black peppercorns, coriander seeds, cumin seeds that has been ground in mortar and pestle.

Turn on the heat to high and let pressure build then turn to medium and let cook for 20 minutes. Turn off heat and let the pressure escape. If beans are soft then go ahead and use the immersion blender and puree the beans. It started to thicken up here already.

Add 1/4 cup of olive oil to wok and transefer the hot beans to the hot oil and start stirring. It will soon bubble and pulling away from the side as you stir. It is thickining more at this stage and time to shut the heat off, It will thicken more as it cools at this stage and starts looking more like a paste. You can add this to tacos burritos or as a side dish with Spanish rice and topped with crumbly cheese and lettuce tomato onion and avocado.

Enjoy.