Cheater's Casamiento

Everyday, I thank my lucky stars that I have a plethora of amazing ethnic foods available to me at any given moment.   I mean, how lucky am I that I can have Chinese Korean food for lunch and Salvadorean food for dinner?  One of my all time Salvadorean dishes is casamiento.  (Some of my all time favorite Salvadoreans are Maria Mancia and La Yaki)  It's this really soothing, creamy, comforting dish of beans and rice.  Casamiento in spanish means wedding or marriage.  So think of it as a marriage of rice and beans.   Such a simple concept of just beans cooked with rice and you end up with a bowl of ridiculous deliciousness.

I'm not talented enough nor patient enough to make my beans from scratch.  So I used canned refried black beans to shave off a few hours of cooking time.  So I'm calling this recipe Cheater's Casamiento.  Get it?  This is NOT the traditional way to make casamiento.  I put some thought into how I thought it might be made and this is my best guess.  Hopefully, Papa Mancia won't slap me upside the head.

Imagine a big, comforting, warm bowl of this:

Don't let the picture fool you.  It's divine.

You need:

1 small onion

1 1/2 cups of long grain white rice

3 cups beef stock

2 cups of water

butter

pepper

garlic salt

cream

I start by finely mincing my onion like this:

To a 3 quart saucepan on medium heat, I add 2 tablespoons of butter.  The real stuff.  Or you can use oil.

To your melted butter, add your diced onion.

Season with pepper.

Season with garlic salt.

Saute the onions until they are soft but not browned.

Then I add a cup and half of long grain white rice.  This kind:

Saute your rice in your onion butter mixture for a minute or so.

Then add 3 cups of beef broth (or water if you're doing a vegetarian version).

I added 1 cup of water and let simmer on low for about 30 minutes.  Don't forget to stir once in awhile. 

Then when the rice is cooked and it looks kind of like this:

I add one can of refried black beans:

Dump the entire can into your rice.

Mix the refried black beans into your rice.

Add another cup of water.

Mix the water in and simmer on low for another 20 minutes or so.  The goal is to get your rice to kind of "open" and just start to break down.  That's the way I like it.  There are other versions of casamiento that keep the beans whole or the rice whole, but this way works for me.  

When the rice has started to "open",  I add a splash of cream to make this dish even creamier. 

Aaaaand there it is, folks.  Cheater's casamiento.

Top with queso fresco if you have it.  Goes really well with plantanos (fried plantains) and Salvadorean crema.  

Also goes well with my Salvorean (Salvi-Korean)  fusion pork and kimchee pupusas.  I'll post that recipe someday.