Thai Black Beans with Mango and Cilantro

What's better than a fresh, hot serving of your favorite dish? Often times, it's leftovers. Definitely the case with this dish, Thai Black Beans with Mango, and Cilantro (from Terry Walters, Clean Food) which I'm enjoying for lunch as we speak. Sometimes a certain recipe still has a little magic left to work in the fridge, and the extra the has stood this one very well.

Also, a shout out to my Mama, whose birthday was yesterday, and who consented to have this dish prepared as a birthday meal. Don't worry, even though it was amazingly delicious, she and my father pre-gamed the night before at The Guilford Bistro, just in case. As a person with a well-developed sweet tooth, she was also treated to a tart and tangy Cherry Mocktail.

A word to the wise, the Thai beans recipe assumes that you have A. Soaked your beans overnight and B. cooked them to desired softness before you begin. You can use a "quick soak" method, which of course I did, but it's still going to set back dinner time by an hour or two.

Here's the biz:
1/4 cup fermented black beans (just a note here, these are actually fermented black soy beans, and an Asian market or the interwebs are really your only hope. They are also known as Douchi. If like me, you don't happen to carry cash around with you much, be prepared to haggle with the clerk over a minimum credit card purchase amount. One more tangential note, of someone knows a good Asian market besides the one in east haven, let me know, since they don't like me very much now.)

2 garlic cloves peeled
1 tbsp fresh grated ginger
1 tsp roasted red chili paste
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 tbsp sucunat (an unrefined sugar with the molasses component still intact, whole foods has got you covered. Now if they'd just work on the Douchi.)
1 tbsp lime juice

4 cups of cooked black beans
2 mangoes peeled and chopped
1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Soak the fermented beans in hot water for 2 minutes, then drain them, rinse them, and drain them again. Add The next 6 ingredients, blend to a pasty sauce, and set aside.

Heat your cooked black beans until they are heated through. Add the fermented bean mixture, stir until thoroughly combined.

Walters suggests you take this mixture, press it into a mold, flip it over onto a serving dish, and drizzled it with the mangoes and cilantro. Honestly, if I were entertaining guests or trying to be impressive, I would have given it a shot. In this case, we were all hungry, so I dispensed with aesthetic and spooned the beans over some basmati rice, the spooned the mango/cilantro over the beans. Still a pretty picture actually, and less one mold and one serving dish to wash. Win win, I say.



Let me also extol the virtues of a rice cooker. Although it is one more thing to clutter up your kitchen, it makes cooking rice or quinoa a breeze. You can spend a lot of money on one, but mine cost about $20, makes about 3 cups of rice at a shot, and works just fine. When in the midst of preparing the main course, it's nice to be able to "set it and forget it," as they say in the infomercials. If you need more than 3 cups of rice at a shot, we may need to have a serious talk, unless of course you're feeding a lot of people. For the most part, it me and Mama. One of these days I might cook something that appeals to my father, but it doesn't seem bloody likely. According to him, the four major food groups are represented thusly (in order of importance):
Diet Soda
Chocolate Ice Cream
Ground Beef
Ripple Potato Chips

I'm working on it, folks, but it's sort of like trying to teach an orange traffic cone to play the harp.

See you in orbit!
- Posted using BlogPress

Location:Madison, CT