Gallo pinto breakfast

Before you start

• soak the beans overnight, or use a drained tin
• day-old rice from the fridge, so the rice really wants cooking the night before

Ingredients

Serves 2 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 120glong-grain rice — cooked the day before and chilled
• 100gdried black beans — or a drained tin
• 2eggs
• 1onion
• 1red peppers
• 1 tbspoil
• 1 tbspworcestershire sauce — salsa Lizano if you can find it
• 1 handfulcoriander
• to tastesalt

Method

7 steps

1. soak · 8 hours walk away

   Beans in plenty of cold water overnight. They swell to about double, so give them more room than looks sensible.

2. boil · 12m

   Drained, covered with fresh water, and boiled HARD for a full ten minutes before the heat comes down. That rolling boil is what makes dried beans safe to eat, and a gentle simmer does not do it.

3. simmer · 1 hour walk away

   Then at a low simmer until they crush easily, salted only once they are soft. Keep a cupful of the black cooking liquid — it is what colours the rice.

4. boil · 15m walk away

   If the rice is being cooked for tomorrow: rinsed, twice its volume of water, lid, lowest heat, then spread on a tray to cool quickly and into the fridge within the hour. Rice left standing warm on the side is the one thing not to do with it.

5. fry · 8m

   Onion and pepper softened in the oil until sweet, then the drained beans in with a few spoonfuls of their liquid and the worcestershire sauce.

6. fold · 6m

   Cold rice broken up with your fingers as it goes in, and turned through until every grain has gone dusky and there is no wet liquid left in the pan.

7. fry · 4m

   Eggs fried in the same pan alongside, coriander over the rice, and both onto the plate together.