South by South of the Border: Black-Eyed Pea Burritos

If you’ve been reading here for at least a little while, you might remember my post from a few weeks ago on rice and beans. Actually, the post was a recipe for the almond pasilla chile sauce I concocted to eat with rice and beans. Well, I know rice and beans isn’t exactly the flashiest topic, but I have some information that I feel is worth sharing. If you eat Mexican food at all frequently, and are, like me, challenged in the planning department, meaning you always forget to soak your beans the night before, then try this: Instead of using dried beans, use dried black-eyed peas. You don’t have to soak them, they are as cheap as dried pinto beans, they taste similar to beans, and most importantly, they taste good. I just place a decent amount in a pot (they expand quite a bit, so be careful with quantity, though you could always freeze any extra), rinse them, then cover with a few inches of water, bring to a boil, and let them simmer on medium heat until tender (around 45 minutes).

When the peas are fully cooked, I turn them into “refried peas.” I do this the Diana Kennedy way. Until I read her book, The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, I was doing it all wrong. I was trying to make things too fancy, using cumin and lime and chiles and whatnot, and my refried beans just didn’t taste right. Then I read her recipe for frijoles refritos, and realized what a fool I’d been. The recipe called for lard, onion, cooked beans, bean stock, and salt. In other words, “keep it simple,” which is really the solution for many of life's problems, is it not?

So I did as Ms. Kennedy said, and kept it simple. I did not use lard (for my husband's sake), but olive oil worked quite nicely in its stead. You have to use a lot of it to get the nice, creamy texture. I never measure, but just pour about three times the amount of oil that seems reasonable to me (maybe a third of a cup). You add chopped onions (I use only half an onion for about four cups of cooked beans) to the hot oil, and sauté for a few minutes until they are soft, then add your cooked beans, or in this case black-eyed peas, a little of the cooking water as needed, and mash everything (I use a potato masher). Add a little salt if necessary, and cook until everything is quite mushy and creamy. But some lumps are OK, and in my opinion preferable.

If you do this with your black-eyed peas, they will taste a lot like refried pinto beans. And you don’t have to remember to soak anything. Pretty cool, huh? And you also get to be cool, because you are creating fusion food, in this case an alliance between the Southern black-eyed peas, and the Mexican burrito. (And if you are in the South, you get to be even cooler, because black-eyed peas are local.) In this meal’s latest incarnation, I took the fusion concept a step further, and made a Mexican coleslaw to go inside the burrito, along with the black-eyed peas. I also added a smoky sour cream to it, which was not fusing anything, but tasted really good.

Mexican Cole Slaw
This is a light, tangy and spicy version of the usual creamy sweet coleslaw.
One half a green cabbage (or mixture of green and red cabbage) shredded
1/4 cup minced red onion
1 minced jalapeño pepper (or to taste)
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
Juice of one lime
Salt to taste

Toss all ingredients together. Serve as a side dish or inside a burrito, taco or quesadilla.

Smoky Sour Cream (If you want something vegan, try the almond pasilla sauce instead.)
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
salt to taste

Mix all ingredients. Serve with burritos, tacos, or quesadillas. This would also be good as a dip for tortilla chips, or home fries.