Prep: 10 minutes Cook: 10 minutes
Serves: 1
Classic Cuban picadillo – ground meat flavoured with sweet raisins, savoury tomatoes, salty olives and fragrant cinnamon – is the ultimate comfort food. Here, I’ve turned those same flavours into an easy-to-make warm dip that uses black beans in place of the meat (with a hint of soy sauce to add some umami). The result can be eaten warm or cold with tortilla chips. (Editor’s note: this recipe was written for a party of one – make double or triple if you’re sharing.)
Ingredients
2 tbsp raisins
165g (¾ cup) drained canned diced tomatoes
5 pitted green olives
1 large garlic clove
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
165g (1 cup) drained cooked or canned black beans
¼ tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp Japanese soy sauce (such as Kikkoman)
⅛ tsp ground cinnamon
⅛ tsp smoked paprika
Tortilla chips
Method
Roughly chop the raisins and put them into a small bowl with a little warm water to soften for 5 minutes. Roughly chop the tomatoes (to cut the chunks into smaller pieces) and set them aside. Thinly slice the olives and mince the garlic.
Heat the olive oil in a small non-stick pan over high heat. Drain the raisins and add them and the olives to the pan. Cook, stirring a bit, until some pieces are starting to brown, about 2 minutes.
Add the tomato and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until the tomato has lost some of its volume and looks a little bit cooked, 3 to 4 minutes.
Add the beans, season them with the salt and soy sauce, turn the heat to low, and cook until they’re just warmed, another minute or two.
Add the cinnamon and paprika and cook for 30 seconds, stirring, to toast the spices, then transfer the bean mixture to a bowl.
Eat the beans warm or at room temperature, with the chips.
Recipe extracted from Snacking Dinners (Hardie Grant)
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