Veg*n Cooking and Other Random Musings: Tacos de Frijoles Negro y Setas Shiitake (Black Bean and Shiitake Mushroom Tacos)

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Tacos de Frijoles Negro y Setas Shiitake (Black Bean and Shiitake Mushroom Tacos)

Again, I made another attempt to translate my title for this recipe into Spanish. Alice, who hails from Spain, has always been a big help in teaching me how to do this right. I think in many ways I am starting to at least learn how the title should be constructed. I'm not sure if I got this one quite right, but I actually remembered that you are supposed to put the "taco" (or quesadilla, burrito, fajita, etc.) in front of the rest of the title. This was a difficult concept for me to grasp as an American as English sentences are structured very differently than many other languages. I hope I got this right, and if anyone out there would be willing to correct my poor Spanish, it would be much appreciated. I really owe Alice for helping me everytime I've tried to do this - thanks Alice, you seriously rock! I hope to eventually go back and re-title all of my recipes in Spanish, this could take awhile, and I'd need a lot of help, but anyone who would be willing help would be the happy recipient of some lovely Mexican yummies from yours truly - sauces, dried or pickled peppers, that kind of thing, it has to be something that travels well, but I am taking offers... ;-)

Anyways, you may notice that I used shiitake mushrooms in this meal - not a very traditionally Mexican mushroom, but I am all about bucking tradition, and dammit, they are good in Mexican food. Let's just say it is my inner rebel shining through.

These were really good and they will be making their way into our regular dinner routine. I love tacos as they are really tasty, and super easy to make, and they are the perfect place to let the lovely local booty we've been rolling in shine through.

We made these last week - I've been a bit behind in my food posting due to Brett's What is Food series and the Quit Now Challenge, but I am starting to get caught up.

Just a reminder of the produce legend:
* = farmer's market
** = CSA
*** = Container or Community Garden

















The "finished product" photo is of Brett's tacos, he really liked the addition of a little bit of cheese.

Tacos de Frijol Negro y Setas Shiitake
2 cup black beans, cooked
1/2 cup long grain brown rice, cooked
1-2 cups shiitake mushrooms, minced *
1 Super Chile, seeded and minced (or other hot pepper: serrano, jalapeno, etc) ***
1 cherry bomb pepper (or other sweetish pepper: banana, poblano, etc) *
1/2 green bell pepper, seeded and minced **
2 cloves of garlic, minced *
1/2 yellow onion, minced **
juice of half a lime
chili powder
cumin
ground coriander
Mexican oregano
paprika
white pepper
salt

taco shells
shredded lettuce
diced tomatoes **

Heat a few tablespoons of water in a small sauce pan. Add mushrooms, peppers, garlic and onion.

Cook for 10-15 minutes or until soft.

Add the beans, rice, corn and seasonings. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Layer filling, lettuce, and tomatoes in warmed taco shells.

I wish I could have one of these right now!

'Til next time!

13 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

Yay, Alice!! :0D

Mmm, more delicious tacos!!

ilex said...

Mexican is the most perfect cuisine in all the world. Even with shiitakes- which happen to be the second-most perfect mushrooms in all the world (the first would be morels, IMHO).

jessy said...

sweet gloriousness, Jennifer - your tacos are making me drool on to my freak'n keyboard. i would have never thought to use shiitake in tacos - it's good to know they're so awesome! and hooray for black beans, local booty, and getting creative. mmmmmmm! rock on! i'm writing this recipe down! thanks! :D

Alicia said...

Hahaha, I first read only the title and thought "hey! that's right! how great!". Well, I guess, at least, hehe. Beans are called judías in Spain and frijoles in South America, so I don't know exactly how the word is used. But I think this is the right way to say it! (mmm, I could actually ask someone tomorrow at work...)
So this is what you planned for all those huge good-looking shiitakes I saw in a previous post?! I don't care is not traditional, I'm sure it's a perfect combination :-)

Bianca said...

I would never think to add shitakes to tacos, but it's a lovely idea! You're so cute with your Spanish titles! I'm glad Alice is helping b/c I only know like "no habla espanol" and "gracias."

Chile said...

Those really sound tasty! I've never tried using shiitakes in Mexican food. In fact, I rarely even use mushrooms in Mex. food. I'll bet they give it a nice meaty bite as well as a richer flavor!

Unknown said...

yummm... your making me hungry! :)

p.s. i made your roasted salsa verde last night... AH-MAZE-ING!! makes me want to buy lots-o-tomatillos & freeze salsa verde for the winter.

i found these beans at the store today i've never heard of. and... oddly enough i thought "i wonder if jennifer has ever had these?" but darn it i cant remember the name of them now, but i do remember they were green. ill have to write it down next time.

Anonymous said...

That is so cool that you can get local shiitake mushrooms at your farmers market! I have not noticed local mushrooms at our markets here...I will have to keep my eyes open for them from now on, though, because these sound fantastic!

Courtney

Lisa (Show Me Vegan) said...

These tacos look awesome! I can almost taste the shrooms, beans, rice, and peppers. MMm, mmm, good.

VeganCowGirl said...

The finished product looks amazing Jennifer!

Alicia said...

OK, I asked someone at work today, and now I now more about frijoles :-). It should be "Tacos de frijoles negros y setas shiitake". I thought maybe they use the singular (you never know...), but no, they also use the plural.
So I learned something new too :-)

J said...

Veggie Girl - Yay for Alice is right! She has been a big help.

Thanks, they were very tasty!

Ilex - I couldn't agree more. And I like to do untraditional things, so the shiitakes in Mexican food is a very "Jen-Like" meal. I would agree shiitakes are amazing mushrooms, I buy them from the "Shiitake Kid" at the farmer's market every week he is there regardless of whether I have any idea of what I want to do with them or not.

I've never had morels, it actually wasn't until I became a vegetarian that I even liked mushrooms, and now I love them. My partner Brett's Grandmother used to go morel "hunting" every year here in Missouri and Brett has told me of his fond memories of her coming home and frying up a big batch of freshly picked morels. We talked about it last night and decided that we ourselves would go morel "hunting" this fall when they should be around again, I can't wait to try them!

Jessy - Hahahaha. I like to get creative with my Mexican food, and trying to live locally in the Midwest means we get to use ingredients fairly uncommon in Mexican food - but we have found that "authentic" or not - it is still damn tasty.

Alice - Hahaha. Thank you for always helping me out with my translations, I really, really appreciate it, and I owe you big time. If my canning goes well, I just might have to send you some pickled peppers or salsa since you don't have much luck finding a lot of these ingredients in Germany.

I made this last week, so I used the shiitakes we had posted about in a previous Local Booty Update. The huge pile of shiitakes in the recent post were used in another batch of Leng's awesome fried rice and an adzuki bean dish I plan on posting about on Saturday.

Bianca - I wouldn't have either, but my mind is always on Mexican and I can never pass up the amazing looking (and truly incredibly inexpensive) shiitakes at the market. The purveyor even sells the logs ready to go for folks to grow themselves. I might have to do that next year.

Haha, I should have taken Spanish in school, but went for German. So I am making up for lost time. Beyond what you know, I also know "bueno". But hey - if nothing else, I could go to Mexico and find something to eat!

Chile - Mushrooms in Mexican do add a nice bite, and the flavor of the shiitakes added a nice smokey element I wasn't expecting. Most types of mushrooms, even portobellos, are great in Mexican with the right flavor combination. For portobellos, I recommend a citrus flavor.

Selina - I'm getting hungry responding to these comments!

I'm so happy you liked it, that is a good salsa. YOU SHOULD. In fact, that it was I am doing this weekend, I am going to get the ingredients for a double batch of the Green Chile Taco Sauce at the market this weekend so I can freeze some for winter. Next week it will be a different sauce - gotta take advantage while those things are available locally. Oh, and I will be trying out some NEW salsa recipes over the coming weeks, Brett has been on me to work on my tomato based salsa recipes since we've got so many tomatillo based ones.

Hahahaha about the beans, at first thought with how you describe them, perhaps they were mung beans. They are green and really small. I have seen them at the store, but never had them, for some reason the word "mung" just never sounded very tasty. ;-)

Courtney - I thought so too. Every once in awhile we have another mushroom purveyor who sells oyster mushrooms, but she mostly sells to local restaurants, so it's only when she has a surplus that she goes to market. But the "Shiitake Kid" (a little boy sells them for Dad) has been there most weeks, and they are the best mushrooms I've ever had!

Lisa - Thanks! It was a nice combination.

Vegan CowGirl - Thanks!

Alice - Aw, now I really owe you! Thank you for looking into that. That makes a lot of sense, I was wondering if it should be "frijol" or "frijoles", I thought it might be the singular vs. plural form, but I decided to trust the translator on that one (but I DIDN'T trust the translators sentence structure, I knew that was wrong). Thanks for looking into that and I'll go change it right now. :-)

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