Thursday 26 April 2012

Cassoulita (Mexican style Baked Beans)

Exciting Things are happening here in North Lincolnshire. We are perilously close to setting up a gorram brewery! The site has been located & forms filled out in octuplicate, the bank shamans have been appeased with offerings of cash flow charts & SWOT* analysis, and after some intense negotiations, it is agreed that there will be beetroot beer. It will be called 'Best Beeter'. You may not believe me, but that wasn't my idea.

But anyway, I promised Mexican baked beans, and here it is.

Cassoulita is a Mexican inspired dish of beans, sweetcorn & vegetables baked in a rich pasilla chile sauce (though you can use guajillo instead, or if all else fails chipotle). I can't think of a nicer way to spend a rainy afternoon (we're having a lot of those at the moment), and it fills the house with warm, comforting spice.
We've been eating it on sourdough toast (sourdough will be blogged about soon!), though it's lovely on baked potato, with eggs or veggie sausages.

Pasilla sauce
4 dried pasilla chiles
1/2 cup ground almonds
4 cloves garlic
2 tbsp tomato puree
750ml vegetable stock
250ml boiling water
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cumin seeds

Deseed the chiles & soak in the boiling water for 10 minutes. Strain & combine with all the other ingredients, adding the stock a little at a time, in a blender & wizz until smooth. You have pasilla sauce, that wasn't too hard, was it? If you can't get pasilla or guajillo chiles, replace with 4 tbsp of chipotle paste.

Cassoulita
1 batch of Pasilla sauce
500g beans (pinto, black beans or borlotti work well, but you can use any), soaked overnight & cooked. Or 3 cans of beans, drained.
2 sticks of celery, finely diced
2 carrots, finely diced
2 red onions (say it with me) finely diced
200g sweetcorn
2 tbsp vegetable oil
bunch of coriander, chopped

Preheat oven to 150C/300F/G2. Heat the oil in a large casserole dish. Fry the onion, carrot & celery until translucent. Add the pasilla sauce & beans & stir. Cover & bake for 1 hour (if you don't have a big casserole dish, you can transfer the beans to an oven dish & cover with tinfoil). If you fancy, remove the lid after 40 minutes & top with shredded cheese, anything you fancy, though Monterey Jack is pretty good.
serve with avocado and a squeeze of lime.

Om nom nom!

*aka we will fight off our competition with reasoned debates, responsible pricing structures & a sack full of doorknobs.

4 comments:

jobee said...

Oh nom nom indeed - will definately have a go this rainy weekend x

Shaheen said...

Oh yes, fantastic to hear that there is progress and exciting news on the horizon. I am so so happy, good things are happening for your Both x I am excited about your Beetroot Beer, You know when you get your first batch underway you must send me some to review. I tried some beet boost at a farmers markets a littl while ago, and know this is going to be even better.

The Cassoulita sounds fab and I'd make it, except I don't have any dried Mexican Chillies at the mo', but that will be rectified in a month or so. For now, I will pretend that I am tucking into this very bowl for lunch today.

littleblackfox said...

Hi jobee!
Ooh, do try it! It doesn't take as long as the Boston beans, and is scrummy. I also like that it has vegetables hidden in there too!

Shaheen, I still haven't sent your parcel, but I've got fresh Wheat gluten & the seeds now, so I'll get it packed off & posted ASAP!
The new brewery is very exciting! We'll be bottling beers, so I'll be able to send you a sample (I'm persuading MikeyFox to do foraged food & veg beers, so hopefully there will be delights like eldeberry stout, pumpkin ale, damson porter & cherry mild - yum!)

Zoe said...

This looks so yummy, I will have to try this out!!