Skip to main content
Main

Cuban Black Beans

A Cuban-style black bean dish simmered with green pepper, onion, garlic, olive oil, sugar, vinegar, and wine.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Cuban Black Beans

Timeabout 45 minutes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

  1. Wash the beans and soak them in water with the green pepper.

  2. When the beans swell, cook them in the same water until soft, about 45 minutes.

  3. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and add the onion, garlic, and ground green pepper.

  4. Add 1 cup of the beans to the pan and mash them.

  5. Add the mashed beans to the remaining beans along with salt, pepper, bay leaf, and sugar.

  6. Allow to boil for a further hour, then add the vinegar and wine and cook slowly for another hour.

  7. If there is still too much liquid, cook uncovered for a while.

Finish and serve

  1. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil just before serving.

  2. To shorten cooking time, you can cook the beans in a pressure cooker.

  3. Serve with rice.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

402Calories
10 gProtein
15 gFat
54 gCarbs

Counts 12 of 13 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 12 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Black Bean1/2 cup canned (120g) drained114
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Bell Pepper1 medium (119g)31
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Oregano1 tsp dried (1.8g)5
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + oreganotop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Clove + oreganotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together556 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Black beans
Form the main body of the dish and set its thick, soft texture as they cook down.
Olive oil
Carries the onion, garlic and green pepper flavour and adds richness to the finished beans.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, building the base flavour of the sofrito.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows during cooking in the oil.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the long-cooked beans.

The step that matters

Mashing part of the beans into the pan. Mashed beans release starch that thickens the cooking liquid, giving the sauce body. Mashing too little leaves the dish watery, so the sauce will not cling as intended.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, pepper, olive, clove, garlic, oregano, sugar):

  1. Eggplantfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pepper, olive, clove, garlic, oregano, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

German Style String BeansGerman Style String Beans7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes