Spill the Beans #2: Habichuelas Coloradas Guisadas
My gentle, mostly plant-based introduction to Puerto Rican cuisine as a California native.
Every time I attempt to cook a Latin American staple dish, I’m pleasantly surprised by the amount of culinary overlap with Filipino cuisine. (Yes, in case you couldn’t tell from my very pale face: Both my parents were born and raised there.) Given my L.A. roots, my home cooking tends to incorporate Mexican flavor profiles and ingredients, rather than Caribbean or Puerto Rican. I also grew up going to El Rincon Criollo and Versailles in Culver City, though I know from a brief trip to Miami a few years back that those two longtime L.A. Cuban restaurants are a far cry from anything you’ll find in Florida, and I’ve yet to incorporate those flavors into my own cooking.
It wasn’t until I visited the now-closed Rumba Kitchen in Little Tokyo that I experienced Puerto Rican cuisine in all its glory. For years, I’ve read and salivated over Alicia Kennedy’s marvelous newsletter, From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, which seamlessly melds academic theory and convincing arguments for plant-based eating alongside plenty of vegetarian recipes using locally sourced ingredients during her several years-long tenure in San Juan. (If you’re reading this, hello Alicia! Huge fan.) I read her newsletter regularly for years, ears pricking up at the mention of ingredients like culantro, annatto seed and other common island ingredients that are hard, but not impossible, to find in L.A.
Last fall, I finally made the time in my jam-packed eating schedule to sit down and cook a Puerto Rican-style pollo guisado, courtesy of Jacqueline Woodson in Bon Appétit. The labor-intensive end result is remarkably similar to a Filipino chicken afritada dish my father used to cook while I was growing up, albeit way, way fussier. “I can’t believe how many hours I poured into this for essentially the same result,” I groused to a friend. Over the next few days, however, the dish grew on me. The next time, however, I’m skipping the need for skin-on chicken thighs—the fatty pieces of skin don’t make for good eating in my book.
The cooking process for pollo guisado involves making a batch of sofrito, with excess product leftover. The introduction implores you to “freeze it to jump-start future soups, stews, and more,” so I did, knowing full damn well it would be several months until I finally found my way back to the tiny Ziplock bag filled with a mysterious-looking light green substance. While I do my best to date and label everything in my freezer, I didn’t bother with the sofrito. From a glance, I knew exactly what it was every time I opened the fridge, and just how much work I had done in the process of making it.
Which brings me to this week’s recipe for habichuelas coloradas guisadas, or Puerto Rican-style kidney beans. Faced with a can of red kidney beans bought during a fugue state of pantry-stocking (likely during L.A.’s almost hurricane back in the summer of 2023), I decided to try my hand at making this recipe from the food blog Aida’s Kitchen. The recipe was so delicious, in fact, that I made it twice, once before I decided to start Spill the Beans and again for the camera.
Without the ham, the recipe is entirely vegan, but omnivores will love the extra smokiness the cured meat imparts. I couldn’t get my hands on calabaza, so I used frozen butternut squash. The only niche ingredient was the envelope of sazón, which I was able to find at Ralphs, though I did unfortunately have to support Goya, as it was the only brand in stock. Essentially, this is just a fancy, highly aromatic way to dress up a can of beans—and I absolutely love it. Paired with parboiled rice and extra cilantro on top, these habichuelas are a must-try pantry recipe, and one I’ll be making whenever I’m strapped for time and craving something nutritious and delicious.
Puerto Rican-style red kidney beans, adapted from Aida’s Kitchen
Makes 4 servings
2 15.5-ounce cans red kidney beans
4 ounces frozen butternut squash cubes (fresh works too, of course)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 Goya sazón (use the one that has both coriander and annatto)
3–4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons sofrito, Bon Appétit recipe here
3 sprigs fresh cilantro
⅓ cup lean ham, diced (optional)
Over medium low heat, add your canned beans into a small saucepan.
Add everything else and stir well.
Cover the saucepan with a lid and cook for 20 minutes or slightly less, if you want the whole pieces of butternut squash. Stir occasionally to prevent beans from sticking to the bottom of the pot.
Enjoy on its own or with white rice.
Thanks for reading Spill the Beans. Next week, I’ll be making one of my favorite summertime staples. My weekly recipe critiques are free to all, but paid subscribers also get access to twice-monthly essays about what it’s really like to be a professional food critic in Los Angeles.