Brown Rice and Beans with Ginger-Chile Salsa

I am in a Tex-Mex mood these days, it seems. This Bon Appetit recipe caught my eye, despite the fact that I usually shy away from recipes with multiple steps due to sheer laziness. Each step was easy enough, and it did make a delicious bowl of Mexican goodness. Try this Brown Rice and Beans with Ginger-Chile Salsa if you have a bit more time than usual to make dinner. Or just make everything ahead of time.

First up: the rice. I use parboiled rice so it only takes 10 minutes to cook, much easier than waiting for 45 minutes. Fry up 1/4 of an onion, diced, in the pan first for about 5 minutes. Once the rice (1 cup) is cooked and cooled a little, stir in 1/4 cup cilantro and some salt and pepper. In another pot, make the beans. Thrown in 1/3 of the remaining onion, diced, into some olive oil and cook 5 minutes. Add 1 tsp each coriander and cumin, cook 1 minute. Add 2 cans black beans and 1 cup stock/water, bring to a boil, and simmer 8-10 minutes, mashing every so often.

This will make a black bean slurry of sorts. Now make the salsa - I have a tiny food processor but the recipe says you can use a blender - good luck. Blend 2 jalapenos, seeded, 1 garlic clove, 1 Tbsp fresh ginger, 1 Tbsp lime zest, some salt and the remaining onion to make a chunky sauce. The second time I made it I used red onion - it all turned bright pink. Stick with yellow onions.

Now we get to assemble our delicious bowls! Obviously the rice and beans go in the bottom, topped with some salsa, which has a lovely limey taste with a little heat. Top with diced avocado, cheese (I used feta), more cilantro and lime wedges. My only advice would be to add some more heat or spices to the beans - they were a little bland. More onion, more cumin, maybe some cayenne, some garlic? Something to wake them up a little. Otherwise it's a big bowl of classic Mexican flavours - you really can't go wrong.