Costa Rican Gallo Pinto

Costa Rican Gallo Pinto - Naturally Gluten and Dairy Free

My husband and I recently went to Costa Rica with another couple, one of my husband's best friends. The guy of the other couple grew up in Costa Rica and his mother got this recipe from some friends that live there. His mother passed it on to me. Gallo Pinto was offered as a breakfast meal, but I'm sure it can be served at other times of the day. If you make it without the cilantro or the Lizano it will not taste the same - this is very important to know :)


Ingredients:

1 can of drained Black Beans (his mother says she even rinses it)
1 cup of prepared rice (according to instructions on the package of rice - each rice is slightly different. And make sure it is NOT sticky rice)
1 Green Bell Pepper (I only used 1/2)
1 white onion (I only used 1/2 again)
1/4 cup of Lizano sauce (this is actually to taste the end - if you like a lot - feel free to put as much as little as you like - I thought 1/4 cup was a good number to off of.)
Chopped Cilantro to garnish
1 clove of minced garlic
olive oil for sautéing.


Directions:

1. Prepare rice as directed on the package. Mine was a quick cooking rice that only took 15 minutes of cook time.
2. While you let the rice simmer and cook, begin chopping the green bell pepper and onion. Put enough olive oil in the pan to have a thin layer covering the bottom of the pan and place onions and the green bell pepper in to sauté as well as the minced garlic clove. Let this sauté over medium or medium low heat until the onion and green bell pepper are tender.

3. Add the rice and beans to the sautéed green pepper, onion and garlic and mix well and sauté for about 5 - 10 minutes.

4.  At the very end of the sauté add the Lizano sauce and the cilantro. Don't let it cook for more than 30 seconds or the flavor will be gone.

 

5. Finally you can fry a couple of eggs or 1 or 3 ;) Depending on your appetite, or how you like eggs and place over the Gallo Pinto. I like mine over hard with salt and pepper.



For those of you who do not know what Lizano sauce is, it looks like this:

....and I got mine off of Amazon.com since it is not sold in my grocery store down the street.