Black beans and plantains with rice
Slightly sweet Venezuelan-style black beans, fluffy rice and caramelized fried plantains on one plate, the salty-sweet combination that makes a pantry dinner feel like a treat.
- 45 min total
- 35 min hands-on
- A little more hands-on
- Serves 4
- About $1.75 a serving
- 730 calories
- Good the next day
- Vegetarian
- Gluten-free
Dolly says: Make the full amount. It’s just as good for lunch the next day.
Ingredients
For 4 servings.
- 1½ cups long-grain white rice, rinsed
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 cans black beans, not drained
- 2 plantains, very ripe, mostly black
- ½ cup queso fresco, crumbled (optional)
From your pantry
- 2½ cups water
- 1½ tsp salt, divided
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
Each serving has about 730 calories, 20 g protein, 129 g carbs and 15 g fat, and costs about $1.75 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No long-grain white rice? Jasmine rice or basmati rice works.
- No yellow onions? White onions or red onions work.
- No red bell peppers? Yellow bell peppers work.
- No black beans? Pinto beans or kidney beans work.
- No queso fresco? Cotija cheese or feta cheese works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Put the rice, 2½ cups water and 1 teaspoon salt in a medium and over high heat.
Saucepan. A saucepan is a pot with tall, straight sides and one long handle. It’s for things that need depth, like rice, sauces or a few boiled eggs.
How you’ll know: The food fills it about halfway, leaving room to bubble without spilling over.
Bring to a boil. It means heating a liquid on high until it’s fully boiling before you move on. A lid on the pot gets it there faster, which makes it a good moment to chop something.
How you’ll know: Big bubbles break all over the surface, and they keep coming when you lift the lid.
High heat
Stir once, cover, and cook on low for 18 minutes. Take it off the heat and leave the lid on.
Low heatTimer: 18 min
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a medium pot over medium heat. Add the onion and pepper and cook, stirring, 6 to 7 minutes, until soft.
Medium heatTimer: 6 min
Stir in the garlic and cumin and cook 1 minute, .
Fragrant. Fragrant means cooking until you can clearly smell it, usually garlic or spices, often in about 30 seconds. That’s the moment the flavor is ready, just before it can burn.
How you’ll know: You can smell it from a step back, and garlic is pale gold, not brown.
Medium heat
Add the beans with their liquid, the brown sugar and ½ teaspoon salt.
Medium heat
15 minutes, stirring now and then and mashing a few beans, until thick.
Simmer. Simmering means keeping a liquid just below a boil, with small bubbles rising gently. It cooks food evenly and lets a sauce thicken without scorching on the bottom.
How you’ll know: Small, lazy bubbles break the surface every second or so, and nothing is churning.
Medium heatTimer: 15 min
Turn the heat to low.
Low heat
Cut the ends off the plantains, slit the and pull it off, then them on an angle about ½ inch thick.
Peel. Peeling means removing the skin with a vegetable peeler or a small knife. It takes off tough or bitter skins, though potato and carrot skins are fine to leave on unless the recipe insists.
How you’ll know: The color underneath is even all over, with no patches of skin left behind.
Lengthwise. Lengthwise means cutting along the long side, from stem to tip, which gives long pieces. Crosswise is the other way, straight across the middle, which gives short, round ones.
How you’ll know: Lengthwise halves of a zucchini look like two little canoes; crosswise pieces look like coins.
Slice. Slicing means cutting food into flat pieces of about the same thickness. Even slices cook evenly, so none are raw while others burn.
How you’ll know: Lay a few side by side: they’re close to the same thickness from one end to the other.
Dolly’s tip: Plantains don’t peel like bananas. The slit along the side is what gets the skin off.Heat the vegetable oil in a large over medium heat until it and add the plantains in one layer.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Shimmering oil. Oil shimmers when it’s hot enough to cook: its surface looks rippled and wavy, like heat over a road. That’s your cue to add the food, just before the oil would start to smoke.
How you’ll know: The oil looks wavy and runs thin like water when you tilt the pan, with no smoke yet.
Medium heat
Fry 2 to 3 minutes a side, until deep and sticky at the edges, then move them to a paper towel and sprinkle with of salt.
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Pinch. A pinch is what you can hold between your thumb and two fingers, less than an eighth of a teaspoon. It’s a small, forgiving amount, so there’s no need to measure.
How you’ll know: It’s a light sprinkle you can barely see on the food, not a little pile.
Medium heatTimer: 2 min 30 sec
Dolly’s tip: Ripe plantains are full of sugar. If they darken in under a minute, turn the heat down.Fluff the rice and serve it with the beans alongside, the plantains on the side, and queso fresco over the beans.
Crumble. Crumbling means breaking food into small, rough bits with your fingers or a spoon, like feta or ground meat in the pan. Small bits spread through the dish, so there’s some in every bite.
How you’ll know: The pieces are small and uneven, about pea-size, with no big clumps left.
Food safety: If you’re pregnant, buy queso fresco labeled “made with pasteurized milk,” and for extra care, warm it until it’s steaming hot.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
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