Country 39: Costa Rica - Casado & Gallo Pinto

Costa Rican food is... plain, for want of a better word. Essentially every dish includes rice and beans, a staple of the diet. This dish, casado, also is supposed to have plain rice and plain beans but I thought that would be really boring so I combined them and make gallo pinto instead, which is actually traditionally served at breakfast but I added it to my dinner dish.  

Casado is quite cool actually. In Spanish the translation of casader means "married" so casado is "married man." Casado as a dish came about from when the men would go to a restaurant after a day of work and ask for something that their wife would cook them. Another theory is that the rice and beans of the dish are married, because they're always together. I like the first story more. 

Casado is usually served as rice, beans, plantain, salad, a tortilla and an optional source of protein like chicken. I used sea bass. Generally speaking, I would say Nick is better at cooking fish than I am, and the last time I tried cooking sea bass Nick commented that he tends to cook it until the skin was crispy. So this time I left it cooking for significantly longer, and oh boy was the skin crunchy - he's right actually, it was better.

Despite there being quite a lot of different elements to casado, it was fairly simple to put together. The rice probably took the longest amount of time but I think had I just served them as plain rice and beans then that would have been much simpler. As it was, the gallo pinto was really tasty so I'm glad that I did make it like this. Gallo pinto should be made with day-old rice as the grains are easier to separate, but I didn't have the foresight to prepare it and actually freshly cooked rice still tasted bang on.  Gallo pinto is supposed to be made with salsa lizano which is a thin salty brown sauce that is really common in Costa Rican cooking. I didn't have any, so I used Worcestershire sauce instead, and that worked out pretty well in my opinion. 

Overall, I liked this dish a lot. It was simple, the fish was awesome, the gallo pinto was tasty, and everything else was super easy to prepare. Sadly I overcooked the yolks of the eggs but everything else was pretty swell. It does seem quite 'bitsy' in that there are a lot of various different ingredients on one plate that initially don't seem to look like they would go together. And indeed I do think this is the case - they're all just separate things rather than a meal that is supposed to work well with its various components. Each item is individually tasty, and of course when you combine them you've got a bunch of good stuff in your mouth, but I wouldn't say that the bits work together. 

Either way, the meal was great. I took my casado recipe from here and my gallo pinto recipe from here. 

Casado with Gallo Pinto

Serves 2

Ingredients

For the casado

• 2 seabass fillets
• 2 teaspoons dried coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon onion salt
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
• Black pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 ripe plantians, peeled and cut into 1/4" pieces
• 1 cup vegetable oil, or enough to deep-fry plantain
• 1/2 small head of iceburg lettuce
• 1 carrot, grated
• 1/2 tomato, sliced
• 4 eggs, fried
  
• Tortilla, to serve
• Avocado slices, to serve (optional)
• If you're not making gallo pinto, serve with rice and cooked black beans
  

For the gallo pinto

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 small onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 1 400g can black beans, in their liquid
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce (or Salsa Lizano if you can get it!)
• 1/2 cups cooked rice
• 3 tablespoons chopped coriander

Instructions

For the casado

1. Rub dried coriander, garlic salt, onion salt and black pepper into the fish fillets. Heat a teaspoon of oil in a frying pan over a high heat. Wait until the pan is really hot and then put the fish in, skin side down. You want to cook the fish until the skin is crunchy before flipping it to cook the top, which could take up to 10 minutes.
   
2. In a large saucepan, head 1" of oil over a high heat. Working in batches, fry the plantain in oil until golden brown, then remove from oil and let drain on a paper towel. 
3. Prepare the salad by slicing the lettuce and combining with grated carrot and tomato slices. Season with salt, pepper and olive oil. Set aside.
4. Fry the eggs.
5. When everything is ready, serve together with gallo pinto or cooked rice & black beans. 

For the gallo pinto

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over a medium-high heat. Saute chopped bell pepper and oinion until peppers are soft and onion is transluscent. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute, until fragrant.
2. Add black beans, reserved liquid and Worcestershire sauce (or salsa lizano). Stir to combine, then simmer for 5 minutes until slightly thickened and a little bit of the liquid has evaporated.
3. Gently stir in cooked rice and cook until heated through and most of the liquid is absorbed,  but not dry (about 3-5 minutes). 
4. Stir in chopped coriander, season to taste and serve.