Spicy Black Beans with Chorizo

 When Alicia chose this recipe, I was happy because I love black beans and rice. So easy, so cheap, so yummy. I just had a couple of hurdles to overcome.

Hurdle one: black beans. They're quite hard to find here. I asked my dried fruit/nuts/beans/rice guy at the market if he ever had black beans, and he shrugged, "I could paint some white beans for you, Madame." Uh, no.
Then I remembered that black beans are popular in Portuguese/Brazilian cuisine and that there is a Portuguese grocery in Saint Germain. Score! I had a lovely conversation with the store owner, who asked me if I was making feijoada. Um, no--not quite so many pork products in this dish. I described the dish to her, telling her that it was fairly common to eat black beans in the US. "Oh, look!" she told me. "These beans are from the US!" So much for eating local. I cooked up a bunch in my new pressure cooker early in the week and had them ready to go. Except we had eaten too many with our tacos the night before, so I had to supplement with canned kidney beans. The best-laid plans...

Hurdle two: the jalapeño. This one was my fault. It's not that hard to get hot peppers here, but I didn't buy any at the store because I was sure I had one in my produce drawer. I had one, all right, but when I pulled it out, it was definitely not fit for eating. I therefore decided to sacrifice a can of Hatch chiles that a friend from New Mexico had brought. The can says "hot", but they really aren't.

Finding cured chorizo, on the other hand, was a piece of cake. The French love to eat slices of chorizo and other cured meat as a snack with pre-dinner drinks.  I got the chorizo "fort", which would be strong or spicy, but it wasn't really. Seeing a non-spicy trend here?

 The recipe comes together easily from here: sauté sausage and vegetables, add spices and beans, simmer.

For the full experience, you need to also cook rice and fry some eggs. I am a terrible egg fryer, I must say. It's so hard for me to get the temperature just right so that the yolk is runny but the white isn't. Any tips?

And here's the whole shebang, plated and ready to eat. I forgot to add the hot sauce to the beans themselves, but we slathered it on afterwards (Trader Joe's Chili Pepper Sauce. Highly recommended).

There was nothing wrong with this--it's black beans and rice with an egg on top, for crying out loud!--but it didn't make a big impression, either. My favorite black bean recipe involves tomato juice, and I think I was missing that bit of liquid and acidity. Some lime juice might have punched this up a bit, or more chile. And when I dig into the leftovers for lunch very soon, I will experiment with some of those additions.