Episode 1: Cleyvis Natera and Her Mami’s Habichuelas con Dulce
New episodes and recipes every Friday!
“As soon as people hear beans, they think there’s no way it’s going to be good,” admits Dominican-American novelist Cleyvis Natera about her featured recipe - sweet cream of red kidney beans. But - oh! - it’s rich and heavy with warming spices, and exudes indulgence and comfort. And it’s significant to her because “the dish has really morphed and changed as I have morphed and changed in my life…It symbolizes in a way the complexity of what it means to be an immigrant.”
And in return, Rajesh shares a dish he learned from his mom that also takes an earthy staple - in this case yellow dhal - and gives it a zing with the addition of secret spices (spoiler alert: they don’t stay secret in the recipe!).
Find and enjoy both recipes on this page.
In this episode, Cleyvis talks about her acclaimed debut novel Neruda on the Park - a story of love and loss, food and family, generations and gentrification in the Bronx. Cleyvis admits her mother’s cooking has sustained her in multiple ways, especially when her writing dreams took a backseat to a demanding corporate job. “My mom always knew,” Cleyvis says, “that if I [visited her] during the work week, I wasn’t just hungry for the food, I was hungry for the comfort of what she put in the food, which was love.”
Food is an expression of our shared humanity, and everyone has a food story to tell. What’s yours? Get in touch at rajesh@findingourflavor.com. And if you try out any of these recipes, email and let us know how they turned out - if you send us a voice note, we might use it in a future episode!
Episode 1 Recipes
Mami’s Habichuelas con Dulce
“Some of my sweetest memories of childhood are of enjoying this sweet cream of beans,” says Cleyvis Natera. “It is as unusual as it is delicious with its Caribbean flavors of beans, milk, and warm spices. It is also decadent, so limit to a once-a-year treat! Dominicans usually have this treat the Friday before Easter which for us marks Viernes Santos, a celebration of the end of Lent”.
Ingredients
1 pound boiled kidney beans
1 pound sugar (or to taste – Rajesh used half a pound in the episode)
1 teaspoon salt
½ pound batata (sweet potatoes) – peeled and cubed
1 teaspoon nutmeg
3 cinnamon sticks
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
10 whole cloves (Rajesh used just over ¾ teaspoon ground cloves, based on 3 whole cloves being equivalent to ¼ teaspoon ground)
½ cup raisins
1 can Carnation (or other condensed) milk
1 can coconut milk (Rajesh used regular, not low fat because I mean, look at the other ingredients!)
4 cups whole milk
6 cups of water
To garnish:
Galletitas de Leche Guarina (milk cookies, available from Latinx supermarkets)
Instructions
For best results, use dry beans and boil them yourself. To do so: combine the beans, 5 whole cloves (or ground equivalent) and 1 cinnamon stick in a pot with 6 cups of water. Bring to a boil for about 45 mins (or until the beans are soft). Let them rest until the beans cool before blending them.
If using tinned beans, start here.
Place the beans (and the water in which they boiled) in a blender and puree until smooth.
Next, put the pureed beans in a large pot, and add the sweet potatoes, coconut milk, evaporated milk, whole milk, the remaining cloves (or ground equivalent) and cinnamon sticks, the vanilla extract, salt, sugar, and nutmeg. Mix together and cook on low-medium heat.
After around 15 minutes, add the raisins, stir, cover, and leave to cook.
Once it begins to boil, let it simmer for an additional 20 minutes on low heat or until the sweet potatoes are cooked through, which you can test with a sharp knife (they should be soft but retain their shape). Taste as you go to figure out if you’d like to add more sugar. This dessert requires frequent stirring to keep the liquid from boiling over or sticking to the pot so don’t go too far away. Stay close and enjoy the heavenly aromas!
Remove from heat and allow to cool before serving (it will thicken noticeably, especially if refrigerated overnight).
Garnish with the milk cookies to serve.
Rajesh’s Mom’s Dhal
Bright yellow and silky, this is the ultimate comfort food for me. Different cooks give this dish a kick in different ways: my mom adds zing with ground black pepper and amchur, (dried mango powder, which has a fantastically sour taste, and is readily available in Indian grocery stores).
Pre-soaking the dhal is strongly recommended - because dhal that has soaked longer will take less time to cook. The minimum is 30 minutes, and ideally around 2-3 hours, but don’t go beyond 8-10 hours (so, you could soak it before you go to work - yes, you CAN be that organized in the morning!)
This recipe yields generous helpings for two, with some left over
Ingredients
1½ cups dried yellow moong dhal
1½ teaspoons salt
¾ teaspoons ground turmeric
1 - 1½ tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon amchur
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
Water for cooking.
Instructions
Wash the dhal to remove husks and dust, then put in a bowl, cover with water to soak, as above.
When ready to cook, drain the dhal, rinse, and drain again to take out as much water as you can. Put the dhal in a large pan and add water upto 2 - 2½ inches above the level of the dhal. Bring to the boil. The grains of dhal should be bouncing up and down in the vigorously boiling water. As it continues to boil, remove any foam that collects on the surface with a spoon/ladle.
Now reduce the heat to a healthy simmer, and leave partly uncovered. After around ten minutes or so, the dhal will start to rise to the surface. Stir to mix it back into the water, and continue to cook. You may need to repeat this a few times, to prevent the dhal from boiling over.
Check after about another 15 - 20 minutes. If the dhal is turning more creamy, and the individual grains are starting to break down - great! If not, keep cooking and stirring (you can use the back of your spoon to help break down the grains).
The key here is to make sure the dhal still moves like a liquid and is not starting to stiffen. If it is, add a little more water. If the dhal spatters when you take the lid off, reduce the heat.
Once it is becoming silky with mashed grains, add the salt and turmeric, and stir to mix. (If the amount of salt seems too much, start with less. You can add more later).
Now add the vegetable oil, stir to mix, reduce heat to very low, cover and leave to cook. Stir frequently to stop the dhal sticking and the water from separating out. Check for seasoning and adjust salt as needed.
Keep checking and stirring to stop it sticking. Cook until the dhal is approaching your desired creamy consistency (it will continue to evaporate liquid and thicken once it’s off the heat).
Spoon into a serving dish and sprinkle with the black pepper and amchur.
This will be a perfect accompaniment to spicier meat and/or vegetable dishes.