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G'day All,

Late last year the Mrs & I made our pilgrimage to Cayo Hueso. Now down on, I think, Wall St - right near Mallory Square is an arcade with a Cuban Theme. The restaurant in the arcade served some really fine food - well to our Aussie palettes it was fantastic, to a Cuban, who knows?

Anyhoo, they served a side dish which was essentially just Black Beans. SWMBO was absolutely stunned by these beans and has been searching for a recipe to try and emulate them.

Any ideas on what the dish is called or even possibly a recipe?

Rabz

Here's a traditional recipe that might help

Ultimate Frijoles Negros – Black Beans
By Three Guys From Miami


Frijoles negros is a signature dish of Cuban cuisine. It's black beans cooked to perfection in a thick aromatic stew.

INGREDIENTS:
2 1/2 cups black beans, dried
9 cups water
1 1/2 cups onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups green bell pepper, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
2 tablespoons olive oil for sautéing
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon cumin, ground
1 bay leaf
3 tablepoons vinegar
3/4 cup dry Spanish wine
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil (to drizzle over beans in final step)
Cover dry beans with water and let stand covered overnight. Drain and discard water.

Place the cleaned black beans in a large 6-quart saucepan. Add water and olive oil – this will prevent the beans from foaming. Bring the beans to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and cook until the beans are tender, about 1 hour.

Do not add salt to the beans when they are cooking. Salt at this stage of the game will make your beans very tough.

You may also cook the beans in a pressure cooker. Follow the manufacturer's directions for exact times, but our pressure cooker takes about 20 to 25 minutes to cook the beans completely.

Whichever method you use, do not drain the water from the cooked beans.

Meanwhile, chop onion and green pepper. Mash the garlic with salt and peppercorns in a mortar and pestle.

Sauté the onions and green pepper in olive oil until the onions are translucent. Add mashed garlic and sauté another minute or so.

Add the cooked beans, oregano, cumin, bay leaf, vinegar, and wine. Cover and simmer over low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove bay leaf.

Some cooks – including us – like to thicken the beans by taking about 1 cup of beans and mashing them to make a thick paste. Mix the mashed beans back into the pot.

Add additional salt and pepper to taste.

Stir in the sugar; then drizzle a couple of tablespoons of olive oil over the beans. Immediately cover the pot, remove from heat, and let stand for 10 minutes.

Serve the by now fantastically prepared black beans over white rice.

You may garnish the beans with cilantro and chopped white onions. Not only do they look good presented this way, they taste even better than they look.

I guess I'll stop at the grocer on the way home....

Many Thanks!!!

Was it this place?

To me Cuban food is always spicy, but not overpowering. I read a little and there seems to always be onion, garlic, low salt (we use low salt chicken broth), cumin, and black pepper and some hot pepper like jalapeno or cayenne pepper. I like tomato added also, but mr conched doesn't. He throws stuff in better than I do and we always cook the beans and then add stuff. A lot of recipes call for parsley, but we hardly ever use that. We use a lot of fresh cilantro. We also buy roasted garlic in the jar instead of fresh.

One place I read recommended using Emeril's Essence. Again I think cumin is the flavor you may be after.

The recipe above looks perfect.

Hi Nancy,

That's the place...

I'll give recipe above a shot on the weekend and report back if the Mrs finds it acceptable...

Y'all will just have to make a return trip to Florida.

Next time try the picadillo at B.Os Fishwagon. Their recipe is hard to duplicate.