In this edition of Epicurious 101, professional chef Saúl Montiel demonstrates how to make rich, creamy, and flavorful rice and beans–a classic Mexican side dish.
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00:00 Hi I'm Saúl Montiel, I'm a professional chef and today I'm going to teach you how to make the best
00:04 rice and beans at home. They need to be rich, they need to be thick, they need to be full of flavor.
00:09 This is rice and beans uno and uno. When it comes to rice and beans it's basically the side dish for
00:16 most of your Mexican dishes. You can eat this with mole, you can eat this with enchilada. It's simple,
00:21 it's easy and I'm going to show you how to do it. It's time to make the best part of Mexico, rice and beans.
00:28 [Music]
00:30 In front of me I have two cups of black beans. Dry beans from scratch can give you a better taste,
00:35 a better texture. To me it's a hundred times better than the canned. The first step, very important step,
00:40 is to go through all the beans to make sure there's no pieces of rock, pieces of wood,
00:44 like any imperfection. When I was four or five years old my mom would sit me on the table and make me
00:49 go through all the beans and I would do this, you know like fine little imperfected beans.
00:53 Things we don't want this, a la basura. Okay so now I'm going to rinse these beans because beans can
00:59 have a lot of dust. For this recipe you need 5,642 pieces of black beans, no less no more.
01:05 They look perfect, nice and clean. I'm going to dump it in here. Now I'm going to put four cups of water.
01:12 You have to have a lot of water because the beans, they're going to get soaked overnight so basically
01:18 the size they're going to increase. If you don't have enough water and the beans get uncovered,
01:22 the ones on top are going to be drier so you have like two different textures. We don't want that.
01:26 I'm going to store this dish in the fridge, let it sit overnight. Look at this, the size, see the
01:32 difference? Big bean, baby bean. Now I'm going to drain the beans and give a little rinse. Now we're
01:37 going to move into cooking the beans. I'm bringing eight cups of water to a boil. Now when cooking
01:45 black beans you're going to make sure they have enough water. So now I'm going to do one and a
01:49 half onion, four cloves of garlic. Now I'm going to smash them a little bit halfway. You will remove
01:56 the leaf easier and also you will break the flavors of the garlic so it will be stronger. I added two
02:02 avocado leaves. The reason why I'm using avocado leaves to my beans because I want to add an aroma
02:07 to my beans. I want them to taste like Mexico. If you don't have an avocado leaves, bay leaves,
02:12 it will do the work. Two bay leaves and four epazote leaves. Epazote, it's a bitter green,
02:18 a little mustery with licorice and it makes the beans get a richer flavor. If you don't have
02:23 epazote, you can use three or four stems of cilantro. Now that all the aromatics are in,
02:28 we bring this to a boil. Now that you see the vegetables having a blast dancing all over the
02:33 beans, I'm going to lower the heat, simmer it for 60 to 90 minutes. It depends on your size of the
02:38 beans. When cooking black beans, make sure the beans have enough water all the time. When you
02:42 simmer the beans, it's very important that you stir it once in a while. Not a lot because remember,
02:47 the skin of the beans is fragile. So my black beans, they've been simmering for almost 70
02:52 minutes. One way to find out if your beans are ready, you're just going to grab one bean. If
02:56 it's easy to smash, that means it's on point. I can feel that it's tender, that it's meaty enough,
03:01 it's soft. Now we're going to remove the onion, also the leaves, epazote. We don't want this.
03:08 If you can find the garlic, remove the garlic. If not, eat it. It's okay, it's healthy for you.
03:12 Now what I'm going to do, what my mom calls a sofrit. It's going to be like an onion sofrito.
03:16 I'm going to dice some onions, you know chop chop. For my beans, I'm using vegetable oil because I
03:23 don't want to add another label of flavor. Sofrito is when you refry vegetables and then you add more
03:28 flavor to your beans. I'm going to do salt in here because I don't want to brown them. I want them
03:32 to also sweat. The heat is a lower heat. Now I'm going to add some of the beans. We're not going
03:37 to add all the liquid because we want to have rich beans, no watery beans. A little bit more salt.
03:44 We're going to stir, make sure you get the salt everywhere. I'm going to let this simmer for 15
03:48 to 20 minutes. Next I'm going to be making tomato broth for my Mexican rice.
03:53 I make the best Mexican rice by using canned tomatoes because the tomato is more concentrated,
04:01 it's more richer, a little more on the sweet side. So I'm going to dump this here. Cumin,
04:06 I love the flavor of cumin. Putting a quarter of a teaspoon. We're going to do half an onion,
04:12 two cloves of garlic, a little bit of salt. That's what it means a little bit for chef.
04:18 Chicken stock. I'm pouring around 14 ounces of chicken stock and now we're going to puree this.
04:23 We're looking for something between sauce and a broth. This is the consistency that we're looking
04:28 for. If this becomes too thick, just add a little more chicken stock. Too loose, just add more
04:34 tomatoes. My sauce is set, it's time to make some rice. Arroz! The rice that I'm using for my
04:42 Mexican rice is long grain rice. First step of making Mexican rice is wash your rice to remove
04:48 all the starch out of the rice. So you see all this liquid right here? That's all the starch from
04:52 the rice. We want to have a clear water. So now I'm going to do it like three or four times until
04:56 the water is nice and clear. See that? That's what you're looking for. Clear water. I'm going to toss
05:02 the rice to have nice and brown to get like a nutty flavor to the rice. I turn the heat to medium
05:07 heat and I add some canola oil. Add the rice. We're going to be stirring here until it's nice and brown.
05:12 The reason why I'm moving the pad and the spoon at the same time is just to make sure we toss the
05:19 rice evenly so everybody gets the same look. Normally it will take I would say five to seven
05:24 eight minutes but you know the color is going to tell you. When making this rice you need to keep
05:29 stirring most of the time until the rice is nice and brown. This is how it's supposed to look nice
05:34 and toasted. Now I'm going to add the tomato. Before you add it let's just mix it. I'm not putting all
05:39 the liquid because I want to see if it needs more liquid or not. It'll stir right here. I want to
05:44 stir once and that's it. Now that it's simmering low heat I'm going to do corn on top. Then I'm
05:50 going to do fresh green peas, fresh diced carrots, and a whole serrano. This is just going to add the
05:56 aroma of the pepper and some cilantro. Now we're just going to leave this alone we're not going to
06:01 touch it we're going to come back like in 12-13 minutes and see how is it going. No stirring
06:05 nothing. Let's take a look. Smells like my grandma's house, Mexico. You can already tell it's ready. Why?
06:14 Because it's cooked evenly. If I mix it now right it's a bad idea because it's still a little bit
06:20 wet so you have to let it sit before mixing it in. Now I'm just going to let it cover, shut the
06:26 heat off, and let it sit. I'm gonna go get my beans and have a rice and beans feast.
06:31 It's time to plate. Look at this beauty. Look how nice and dry this rice is. Just perfect.
06:40 Now you just need some mole, some cervezas, tequila, the whole family. The serrano is just there just
06:46 in case you need extra heat. And now the beans. They look nice, rich, thick, creamy.
06:53 Now I'm gonna garnish the beans with a little bit of queso fresco. Queso fresco basically is a cow's
06:57 milk cheese. Salty, crumbly, fresh. It's delicious. And there you have it. The best way to make rice
07:04 and beans. All right. The best part of the day. Tasting the food. I call it quality control. Let's
07:11 try this separately right.
07:13 Unbelievable. It's fluffy, it's full of flavor, it tastes just like the rice that my mom used to make.
07:21 Even better. Mom, you watching this? I just said that I love you very much and I hope you were here.
07:25 But in Spanish. Now the beans. They need to be rich, thick, they need to be full of flavor.
07:31 And this is how it's done.
07:33 I mean, I don't know why you choose beans from a can over this. And now the two together.
07:45 Mmm. It's delicious. Now you can put this into your burrito. You can serve this with enchiladas,
07:53 you can serve this with mole. I mean, it makes me happy. You know,
07:56 tasting these flavors just makes anybody happy.