Costa Rican-Style Beans is a traditional Costa Rican recipe for a classic method of preparing the local red beans to serve as an accompaniment or blended with rice. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Costa Rican version of: Costa Rican-Style Beans.
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Ingredients:
500g bag of dried black beans or small red beans
4 large or 6 small garlic cloves, crushed
4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried thyme
2 tsp dried oregano, crumbled
salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
Method:
The day before, dump the dry beans into a large pot (6 quarts) and sort. You want to remove any beans that look bad or out of the ordinary. This could mean they are shrivelled up or have small holes in them (sometimes bugs may have eaten them in the field). Rarely, you may find a few small rocks that snuck through because they are the same size as a bean.
Cover the beans with water, overfilling by several inches. Cover the pot and let soak at least overnight, up to around 24 hours. People here say the longer the better to make beans that are easier to digest.
Drain and prepare for cooking. You will want to rinse the beans well then put them back in the pan. Cover with fresh water. Add garlic cloves, olive oil, spices, herbs and black pepper. Be generous with your black pepper — remember, you’re seasoning around a half kilo of beans. Don’t add the salt yet. Cover the beans and bring to a boil over high heat.
Once they come to a boil, remove the lid and reduce the heat to medium to maintain a steady boil. Continue cooking, uncovered. At this point, you may see some white foam starting to form on the surface. This is normal. It’s the part of the bean coming out that causes unpleasant gastrointestinal side effects (aka gas), so you will want to skim off as much of this as possible. Though leaving a little is just fine.
The beans will need to cook for somewhere between 2-3.5 hours. The drier they are to start, the longer it will take. Keep checking on them periodically and stirring to make sure there is enough water. The beans should always be well covered with water, but don’t add too much towards the end. You’ll want to have a nice thick sauce to go along with the beans. Again, make sure to cook them uncovered especially at the end to achieve a nice sauce.
When the beans begin to soften (around 1.5 hours into the cooking), add the salt. You need to wait until this point so that the beans don’t get tough. You'll need a generous amount of salt (around 1 tsp), but start with 1/2 tsp, adding more if you think it needs it. If you are finding that the beans don’t have enough flavour, you probably need more salt.
You can tell when the beans are done when you test five or six of them and all are nice and soft. Often, a couple will be soft but the next one you try will still be crunchy. Just be patient and keep checking. When the beans are soft but still firm and not mushy, they are done and ready to eat.
The recipe presented here is vegetarian, but one popular way of cooking beans in Costa Rice is to do so with meat added. This enriches and adds considerable flavour to the stock. You can then serve the stewed meat to accompany the beans. Once cooked the beans can also be used to prepare gallo pinto a beans and rice dish.
To make the dish really say Costa Rica, top with a little fresh coriander and Costa Rica’s famous Salsa Lizano or Chilero hot sauce.
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