Black Bean Salad
Black beans are a versatile food ingredient widely used in many parts of the world including, South and Central America, the Caribbean and Spain.
In some countries, black beans are a staple food, other countries cuisines favor black beans prepared as a specialty soup.
There is also the black beans and rice combination popular in Cuban cuisine, and the stew, Feijoda, made with pork and beef using black beans as its base, highly favored among Brazilians and Portuguese.
Black beans, also referred to as Black Turtle Beans or Frijoles Negroes have numerous diverse possibilities in their preparation including today as a Black Bean Salad.
Over the years wherever I have been or traveled if a black bean dish or soup is recommended to the area I try it. One of my curiosities is the actual flavor of the black beans once having absorbed the ingredient flavors through cooking and the tastes the beans impart.
Besides meaty flavors such as a ham hock, sometimes I can taste the beans cooked with an added cinnamon stick or onion, and my favorite flavor when cooking black beans is to add cinnamon sticks and whole onion.
I also use a little trick I learned from a chef years ago, before the onions go into the pot with the black beans, I stick about four or five whole cloves into each onion.
A couple weeks back I prepared Grilled Chicken Quesadillas for the Team Family and served the black bean salad as a salsa-topping accompaniment and it went over well.
I also saw many folks putting additional black bean salad directly onto green salads, mixed into pasta, and eating them with tortilla chips, a good example on the excellent diversity and numerous uses of black beans suited to many tastes and styles.
Black Bean Salad
Ingredients
- 1 16 ounce bag dried black beans, rinsed, checked for any pebbles or debris, soaked in cold water overnight
- 2 medium red onions
- 8-10 whole cloves
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 1 medium size red onion, chopped
- 1 yellow pepper, seeded and chopped
- 1 green pepper, seeded and chopped
- 1 red pepper, seeded and chopped
- 1 fresh jalapeno, seeded and chopped fine
- juice from a fresh squeezed lemon
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 3-4 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro
- 1 1/2 tablespoons coarse kosher salt, more or less to taste
- 1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
Instructions
- Drain the soaked, black beans into colander, rinse
- Rinse out pot, and tumble beans back into the pot
- Fill with cold water to cover a few inches above
- Stick whole cloves into red onions and plop into bean pot along with the cinnamon sticks
- Cook beans until boiling, then reduce heat and continue cooking until the black beans are soft, around an hour
- When the black beans are soft, turn off heat
- Discard the onions stuck with the cloves and the cinnamon sticks
- Drain black beans and spread across a long serving dish, cool in refrigerator
- When beans are cooled, stir in red onion, yellow, green and red peppers and the chopped jalapeno
- Pour in the fresh lemon juice, vinegar, olive oil, stirring between each addition
- Stir in the fresh chopped cilantro
- Once the ingredients are combined, season with salt and pepper checking seasoning and adding more to taste
- Since black beans absorb flavor, use a tasting spoon to taste the salad just before serving, adding in any extra needed salt, pepper, lemon juice, or a bit more olive oil to desired taste.
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