gallo pinto quest

VideoJug: How To Make Gallo Pinto

In Nica, it's so easy to get gallo pinto. I just ask. Whine enough and it appears, while I'm scolded that it's so easy to make.

Yeah, right. If you're born and raised in Nicaragua. If your ancestors have been eating it for millenia. Or at least centuries.

I've never cooked white rice before, so I was totally off on that. Even though I knew it needed far less time than the brown rice I usually cook, I still made it too soggy. And I didn't fry it first in a feeble attempt to save oil calories.

And the ingredients? Well, I had no chile sauce or chiles (chiltomas). But I had a creole tomato I needed to use (they're AWESOME) and a red sweet pepper. Um, ok. Too much onion, and too sweet. I pulled some mystery herb from my freezer - either cilantro or parsley, and I just dumped it in.

The beans I know are right because I snagged them from the kitchen where we were staying (they were given to me, I didn't steal!) - but they don't cook right for me. Some get mushy and others still hard - I've cooked beans hundreds of times and that's never happened.

So, my first gallo pinto gets about a 3. It's edible, and it's even quite tasty in a sweet way, and it's "spotted."

But it's just not the same.

And from what people tell me, it never will be. Probably my best course of action is to extinguish the happy memories.

Sigh.