Gallo pinto was so popular last year we decided to bring it back this week. It’s one of those breakfasts that somehow tastes improbably rich and flavorful even though it’s basically rice and beans. The students started by making a sofrito with onions, peppers, and garlic. They then added long-grain white rice to the pot and while the rice cooked, they warmed tortillas and fried their own eggs (courtesy of our wonderful school chickens!). Cracking eggs is a skill we will continue to work on as the semester progresses - we definitely have fewer compost-only situations on the worktables to clean up!
“Gallo pinto” means spotted rooster in Spanish, and once our chefs added in the cooked black beans, we could see where the dish gets its name. One of the keys to the layers of flavor in the gallo pinto comes from the cooked sofrito melding with the addition of those same ingredients, but raw, towards the end of the cooking process. We ate the beans and rice with homemade Salsa Lizano, the national sauce of Costa Rica, and the warm tortillas with a fried egg on top. ¡Qué chiva!
