Last night time, Brian's Plan A for dinner?Roll-your-own sushi?Fell via at the same time as he discovered that the sushi-grade salmon at H-Mart not comes with wasabi and pickled ginger. (You can buy those condiments one after the other, however for some component like four greenbacks apiece, which could have made our homemade sushi meal nearly as luxurious as getting it in a eating place.) So, left at unfastened ends, he commenced experimenting with the percentages and ends we had in the pantry and fridge: a purple onion, one soggy carrot, some celery, a can of black beans. And what he decided to make out of this motley series was...Pies.
This recipe became, I assume, inspired in part thru a disappointing revel in we might had a month or so in the past. We went out to a brand new Venezuelan restaurant this is without a doubt opened in town, wherein the menu centers on a sandwich-like dish called arepas. These are little flat patties made from cornmeal, cooked on a griddle like crumpets, and then split and packed with a whole lot of fillings, like shredded cooked fowl or pork. I ordered a black bean arepa, nearly the best vegetarian alternative on the menu, and located it insanely bland. The arepa wrapper itself have become surely pretty exceptional, shape of crispy, however the filling simply tasted like the chef had certainly spread out a can of black beans, heated them up without together with any seasoning something, and filled them into the dough. I couldn't even finish it.
So I guess Brian had been toying in the again of his mind with the concept of what he should have completed to make a extra flavorful black bean filling, because of the reality he cooked up a mixture that swung way over to the alternative extreme. He chopped up the carrot, a stalk of celery, and 1 / 4 of a red onion, saut?Ed them in a tablespoon of olive oil, dumped in the can of black beans liquid and all, and simmered it for ten mins. Then he stirred in a whopping 1/2 a tablespoon of Penzey's Northwoods Seasoning, which we received a jar of as a stocking stuffer remaining Christmas, plus half of a tablespoon of dietary yeast, and persevered to simmer the combination until it turned into decreased to a refried-bean shape of consistency.
For the dough, he blended up a form of biscuit dough?A cup and a 1/2 of flour, a half of teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of baking powder, a tablespoon of olive oil, and about half of a cup of water?After which, in his very very own words,
The result was...well, certainly not bland. In fact, I'd say it was a bit too well-seasoned. The Northwoods seasoning, made from salt, paprika, black pepper, thyme, rosemary, garlic, and chipotle, packs quite a punch, and the amount he'd added to the beans made the mixture rather fiery and extremely potent. The outer crust also posed a bit of a problem, because the heavily worked biscuit dough came out not just crisp but hard—so hard that I couldn't manage to cut mine with a table knife. I had to break pieces off the edge of the crust and eat my way through those before I could get to the filling. If I'd been able to distribute the spicy filling more evenly across the mass of crust, I think it would have tamed the heavy seasoning a bit.
So the bad news is, this recipe isn't really ideal in its present form. But the good news is, I don't think it would take that much tinkering to make it work. I knew the basic idea of seasoned black beans in a crust was a sound one, because I'd had had black bean empanadas before that were quite tasty, so I looked up empanadas in Mark Bittman and found that the main difference between his dough and Brian's is that he uses quite a bit more oil—six tablespoons instead of just one to a cup and a half of flour. (He also uses more baking powder, more salt, and a half-cup of cornmeal in addition to the wheat flour.) Making the dough this way, and kneading it for only a minute before forming it into balls, should give us a softer and chewier crust instead of the hard shell these pies had. Bittman also forms his empanadas by putting just a bit of filling in the middle of each dough circle, folding it in half, and crimping it closed. That would eliminate the heavy rolled edge we had on these. And finally, cutting the Northwoods seasoning from one and a half teaspoons down to one, or maybe even three-quarters, would make it much less fiery, but still flavorful.
All in all, I'm inclined to give these bean turnovers another try, but next time make them more like Bittman's bean empanadas. I think with a little tweaking, they could be a decent addition to our vegan dinner repertoire—and one that we'll almost always have the ingredients for on hand.
