Frijoles Charros

Beans, glorious beans! There are so many recipes that you can do with beans. In Mexico, we eat beans almost in every meal, refried beans, beans caldo, beans with tacos, beans with eggs, beans, beans, beans! We do love them! And who doesn’t! They are easy to cook and full of protein and despite the bad reputation they have for giving you a errr funny tummy aka gas! They are just very versatile.

This recipe is not for a veggie lover, in fact, if it wasn’t because the tomatoes, coriander, jalapeño & onion, this recipe would be a meat lover affair. They are call “Frijoles Charros”, a charro in Mexico is a cowboy, so this dish was originally from the north of Mexico, it contains a lot of meat because charros would only have meat (mainly pork) and pulses (pinto beans) in their diet. The recipe always changes from family to family. This is my recipe.

For this recipe you have to cook your pinto beans in advance, I will give you the quick recipe for them. I cooked mine the night before.

Serves 4

Prep 15 min with cooked pinto beans

Cook 30 min plus 1 hr for pinto beans

Ingredients

To cook the Pinto Beans

• 300 gr pinto beans cooked with juice
• 1/2 onion
• 1 garlic clove
• Water
• 1/2 tsp salt

To cook the Charro Beans

• 300 gr cooked pinto beans
• 5 rashes of smoked bacon chopped
• 2 cooking chorizo sausages skin off & chopped
• 1 small onion finely chopped
• 2 tomatoes chopped
• 3 tbsp chopped fresh coriander (cilantro)
• 1 fresh jalapeño chilli chopped
• 1 garlic clove chopped
• Pinch of dried oregano
• 1 tsp salt
• Pinch of ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp paprika (optional)
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin (optional)
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil

To garnish

• Lime wedges (optional)
• Crumbled feta cheese
• Fresh coriander (cilantro)
• Avocado (optional)

Method

Cooking the beans

1. Cook the beans. Soak them in water 2 hrs before cooking.
2. Rinse them and put them in a casserole dish (dutch oven) cover them with water, add half an onion and a garlic clove.
3. Bring them to a boil at high heat and then low the heat all the way down. Cook for 45 min.
4. Check them to see of they are soft. Add salt right at the end.
5. Once cooked, remove the onion and garlic.

Cooking the Charro Beans

1. Have all your ingredients ready and chopped.
2. Heat one tbsp of oil. Start by frying the bacon. Then after 3 min add the chorizo, then the herb sausages. Fry for 7 min.
3. Add the onion & garlic and garlic. Then tomato, jalapeño & coriander and continue frying for 5 min until the meats are cooked. Set aside.
4. If you cooked your beans the night before (like I did). Heat them and once hot add the meats mixture.
5. Add a pinch of oregano & ground black pepper, bit of paprika and ground cumin for more flavour. Cook for 7 min and they are done.
6. Serve with feta, more fresh coriander & avocado. Enjoy!

Listo!

Provecho!