Cuban · Soup
Frijoles Negros Dormidos
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with acid holding everything up to the light, an earthy, grounding base, opening aromatic and staying there.
Ingredients
- 500g dried black beans
- 2.5 litres cold water
- 1 green cubanelle pepper, halved and seeded
- 120ml olive oil
- 200g white onion, finely diced
- 150g green cubanelle pepper, finely diced
- 30g garlic (about 9 cloves)
- 6g ground cumin
- 5g dried oregano
- 3 bay leaves
- 60ml vino seco
- 30ml white vinegar
- 12g sugar
- 15g salt
The skills inside
Sweating aromatics: soft, never brownedFrying the paste until the oil splitsThe bare simmer: holding liquid below the boilSkimming: foam, fat and a clear brothKeeping the cooking liquidSoaking dried goods back to lifeMashing & puréeing
Allergen screen
Found: alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Soak the beans overnight in the cold water with the halved pepper; do not drain them, that black liquor is the body of the dish.
- Bring to a boil, skim the grey foam, then hold at a bare tremble, topping up so the beans stay just covered, until a bean crushes to smooth paste with no chalky point in the middle, about 90 minutes. 90 min
- Meanwhile sweat the diced onion, pepper and garlic in the olive oil until slumped, stir in the cumin and oregano until fragrant, then mash in a ladle of cooked beans to thicken.
- Scrape the sofrito into the pot with the bay and the salt and simmer uncovered until the liquor slides off a spoon in a glossy sheet rather than running clear.
- Take off the heat and stir in the vinegar, the vino seco and the sugar; cool, refrigerate overnight and reheat gently to serve over white rice.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Keeping the cooking liquid 60 recipes
- It was actually kept: the liquid went into a container rather than down the drain, and the volume saved is enough to be worth using.
- It is clean: strained of solids and grit, and not clouded with the debris of whatever broke up in it.
- It tastes of what it cooked and tastes concentrated rather than washed out, and it is not so salty or so bitter that the only honest use is the bin.
- It was cooled quickly and stored cold, not left standing warm on the stove to be dealt with later.
- Used, it does the job the dish gives it (carrying flavour into a sauce, loosening the dish, or setting when chilled) rather than merely adding water back.
Where it goes wrong The pot was left to cool slowly on the stove and only strained the next day, so it soured overnight: what should have been the best ingredient in the dish goes in the bin, and the recipe gets water instead.
Soaking dried goods back to life 69 recipes
- Fully submerged with room to swell: the level is well above everything at the start and still above it at the end.
- Given the full time, and judged by what is in the bowl rather than by the hours on the clock.
- Tested at the CENTRE of the largest piece, cut or pressed. Anything with a hard dry core will still have one after cooking, because the outside softens first and stops the water getting further in.
- The soaking water was dealt with on purpose: kept because it holds flavour, or thrown away because it holds what should not be eaten, but never simply left undecided.
- Drained before it is used, so the dish does not silently gain all the water that came with it.
Where it goes wrong Too little water, or too little time. The pieces swell until they are packed tight against each other and the ones in the middle never fully take up water; they will not soften later in the dish either, so the finished plate has hard pieces scattered through it.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Fino or Amontillado Sherry
- Also Right
- Grüner Veltliner
- From the Taps
- Saison
- Zero-Proof
- The soup is the drink, sparkling water beside
Broths love Sherry’s savory echo (consommé’s old partner); cream soups climb to gentle oak. Weight to weight, always.
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