Congrí (oriental)

As tradition built it

Congrí (oriental)

Serves 8, about 60 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 cups long-grain white rice
• 1 cup small Oriente-style black beans
• 2 cups bean broth
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil or lard
• 1 large white onion
• 4 large garlic cloves
• 1/2 green pepper
• 1/2 red pepper
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 large bay leaf
• a splash vinegar
• a pinch salt

Method

1. Soak the beans overnight.
2. Cook the beans with bay leaf, salt and a piece of pepper until tender, then cool and separate the beans from their broth.
3. Sauté the onion, peppers and garlic in the lard until golden.
4. Add the washed, uncooked rice, the cooked beans, the reserved broth, the oregano, the cumin and the vinegar.
5. Cook until the rice has absorbed the liquid fully.
6. Finish, optionally, with a garnish of sour orange slices for aroma.

Notes

Documented as an Oriente province speciality shaped by the historical Haitian presence there, distinct from the Havana-associated moros y cristianos, which uses the same larger black bean cooked separately from the rice rather than absorbed together.

What a modern chef changes

Sous vide beans, fresh-ground cumin, rested rice

Rung 01, 04

Method

1. Cook the beans sous vide to a precisely even tenderness before their broth goes anywhere near the rice, rather than the more variable result of a stovetop simmer.
2. Toast and grind the cumin fresh in the spice grinder immediately before it goes into the sofrito.
3. Strain a portion of fresh sour orange juice, or its substitute, through the chinois into a clean finishing drizzle rather than relying on the whole fruit slices for aroma.
4. Rest the finished rice briefly, off the heat and covered, before serving, the resting step doing for congrí's texture what it does for any absorption-method rice.