Frijoles de la Olla: A Protein-Rich Dish on a Shoestring Budget

Shoestring budgets are a reality for many university students. When it comes to cutting the proverbial fat off living costs, what’s on their plates becomes less important than the books they need to buy for class. They also don’t have a lot of time on their hands.

There are a ton of jokes about ramen and beer meals, but in all seriousness, it takes a lot of finesse to generate a healthy, well-rounded meal with not a lot of money. Cheap, easy and fast is what many students hope to find even if that means sacrificing nutrition.

With that in mind, I present part one of a protein-rich and flavorsome one-bowl meal – Casamiento.  It is a traditional dish from El Salvador. A true Casamiento, which also happens to be the Spanish phrase for marriage ceremony, is generally made with black beans and white rice. Both typically end up in one cooking pot. The way I’m presenting it here some would call it simply "Beans and Rice", a union that tastes good regardless of what you call it.

We will start with Frijoles de la Olla (literal translation is: Beans from the Pot but we call it Bean-So-Easy). Passed on to me by Melissa Ramirez, a student I once worked with, this bean dish was one she used while getting through long studying jags. While Melissa has graduated and moved back to her hometown, the recipe stayed right here in Pacifica with me. With a few modifications of our own, my family and I would like to share it with you.  Let’s get started!

Approximate cooking time:  2 hours

What you will need:

A large pot, colander, small bowl, knife and cutting board

2 cups culled pinto beans per person

8 cups of water per cup of beans

1 large white onion (modification: ½ onion if you add it toward the end of the cooking process; quartered to make it easier to spot and remove before plating)

4 cloves of garlic for every 8 cups of beans

Salt to taste (While you can add flavor with herbs in the last stage of cooking, make sure that you put salt in during the cooking process so that it cooks through the beans.)

NOTE:  Some cooks use salt pork or bacon instead of salt. I do not.

Directions:

1. Cull beans; keep an eye out for pebbles, caked on dirt and broken beans.  It pays to take time on this because those pebbles will never soften and most likely, will muddy up the water changing the flavor of the beans.
2. To avoid water waste, I soak the beans in hot water for about 4 minutes.  Stir them to loosen up the dirt, strain and follow it with a quick rinse.
3. Fill the pot with water (about a 1 ½ inch above the beans) and bring to a boil.  I usually put a teaspoon of salt in to get things boiling faster.
4. Once the water boils, put the beans in.  My grandmother would put some lard or oil in at this time but I completely avoid it.
5. Let the beans get a good boil on for about five minutes then turn down the heat to medium.  This is so that the beans are rolling about due to the heat but aren’t cooking so quickly that they break.
6. Above all, keep checking the beans and once they soften a bit but aren’t quite done, you can add your onions and garlic.  While you’re at it, taste the water to see if the flavor meets your taste preferences.
7. Remember, this is part one of two of Casamiento and most of the flavoring will happen later. My children's former preschool teacher would add Costa Rican Salsa Lizano to her beans and a Mexican friend would add jalapeño peppers and cilantro to hers. As for Melissa, who is “100 percent salvi” (Salvadorean), she kept it simple and livened things up once she got to the rice.  Her dishes were always the first to disappear at potluck events!

Check back in a week for part two of Casamiento!

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