Casado

Costa Rica's everyday plate of rice and black beans set beside picadillo, fried ripe plantain, cabbage salad and a piece of meat or fish

Origin: San José & Costa Rica

From the journey of Rice.

A casado is the standard lunch of Costa Rica, served in every soda, the small family-run eateries that are the country's real restaurant culture. Rice and black beans sit side by side rather than mixed, and beside them go a picadillo of finely diced vegetable, a slice of fried ripe plantain, a cabbage-and-tomato salad, and a piece of grilled chicken, beef, pork, or fish. The name means married man, and the usual explanation is that a labourer eating out would ask for the sort of plate a wife would send him with, everything on it, arranged and complete. The etymology is repeated everywhere in Costa Rica and is not documented in any source that predates the twentieth century, so it is best taken as the country's own account of itself rather than as established fact. A second explanation, that the components are married on the plate, is also offered. Rice is the base and it is cooked plainly, with a little onion and garlic and no colour, because everything on the plate is meant to be tasted separately. Costa Rica eats a great deal of it: rice and beans in some arrangement appear at all three meals, as gallo pinto at breakfast, mixed and fried, and as a casado at lunch, separate and plain. The same two ingredients, differently handled, define the day. The picadillo is the variable that makes each soda's casado its own. Chayote, green beans, potato, or green plantain are diced very small and cooked down with sofrito, and a cook's picadillo is what regulars come back for.

Ingredients

Rice

  • 350 g long-grain rice, rinsed
  • 600 ml water
  • 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 1 tsp salt

Beans

  • 400 g cooked black beans with a little of their liquor
  • 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 1 red pepper, finely chopped
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 2 tbsp oil

Picadillo

  • 2 chayote or 300g green beans, in 5mm dice
  • 1 carrot, in 5mm dice
  • 200 g minced beef
  • 4 spring onions, chopped
  • 1 handful coriander, chopped

To serve

  • 2 ripe plantains, sliced on the diagonal
  • 4 chicken thighs or fish fillets

Salad

  • 0.25 white cabbage, finely shredded
  • 2 tomatoes, sliced
  • 1 lime, juiced

Method

  1. Rinse the rice until the water runs clear, then soften the onion and garlic in the oil for four minutes.
  2. Add the rice and turn it in the oil for two minutes, then add the water and salt.
  3. Bring to the boil, cover tightly, and cook on the lowest heat for eighteen minutes. Leave it covered off the heat for ten minutes before forking it through.
  4. Costa Rican rice is plain and dry, with separate grains. Do not season it heavily; every other element on the plate carries its own flavour.
  5. For the beans, soften the onion and pepper in the oil for eight minutes, add the cumin, then the beans with a little of their liquor, and simmer for fifteen minutes until saucy rather than soupy.
  6. For the picadillo, cook the minced beef in a dry pan until browned, then add the diced chayote and carrot with a splash of water.
  7. Dice the picadillo vegetables genuinely small, no larger than 5mm; the texture is the point and a coarse dice makes it a stew.
  8. Cover and cook for fifteen minutes until tender, then stir in the spring onions and coriander.
  9. Fry the plantain slices in a little oil over a medium heat until caramelised and dark at the edges, and drain them.
  10. Dress the shredded cabbage and sliced tomato with lime juice and salt.
  11. Grill or fry the chicken or fish, seasoned simply with salt, pepper, and a little garlic.
  12. Arrange each plate with rice and beans side by side and never mixed, the picadillo, plantain, salad, and protein each in their own place.

Notes

Rice and beans go beside one another, not together; mixing them makes gallo pinto, which is breakfast. Keep the rice plain. Dice the picadillo small. Fry the plantain slowly enough for the sugars to caramelise, since rushed plantain is pale and rubbery. The protein is the least important part of the plate and is whatever is good that day. The whole thing is assembly, and a casado is judged on the picadillo and the plantain rather than on the meat.

The Gastrographer

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Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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