Traditional Cooking:Mashed Beans

It is a food that has become traditional here. It is made slightly differently, depending on the geographical region, but in any case it is an easy to make, tasty and nutritious dish.

I will show you here how to make the version from Transylvania, which I like very much. I guarantee you the result.

Any food market in the world.

The two photos from this step show the necessary ones, as follows:

Right

- 2 medium-sized yellow onions

- frying pan diameter 30...35 cm.

Left

-Tall plastic bowl for mixing ingredients

-Ceramic bowl for the final product

-Blender

-50 ml. sunflower or olive oil

-salt to taste

-2 cloves of garlic (peeled)

-10 g. paprika

-glass

-canned beans of 400 g. Its liquid contents are poured into the glass next to it.

Obviously, in the traditional version, dry beans are used.This (300 g.) is softened in water for 12...24 hours, after which it is boiled for 1...3 hours, during which the boiling water is thrown 2...3 times. It is considered cooked when the fork easily enters it. In addition to the long cooking time, this method also has a potential disadvantage:I found in practice that anyway we cannot know if the beans will boil or not, that depends on the method of picking, drying and preserving the vegetable. That's why I preferred the version with canned beans, which are already boiled.

However, it must be said that the version with dry beans is tastier, so whoever can buy it with a guarantee of its quality, can try it.

Peel the two onions and cut them into small pieces. Pour the oil into the pan and after it heats up, add the chopped onion (see the first photo from this step).They are browned on medium heat until they look like here.

Turn off the fire and add the paprika as in the next picture. It should not be fried at all, because it acquires a bitter taste.

Mix onion and paprika, as in the following photo of this step.

In the tall plastic bowl we will put the following: the 2 cloves of garlic (cut), beans, salt (to taste), pepper (optional) and 1/2 of the amount of fried onion from the pan, as we see in the left photo of this step.

We will add the juice from the beans, little by little, while mixing with blender, so that we get a paste of medium consistency,see the photo on the right.

Of course, traditionally a blender was not used, but a manual whisk, hence the popular name "beaten beans".It is a recommended method for those who have time and patience.

We will pour what we obtained in the previous step into the ceramic bowl. On top we will put the other half of the onion fried with oil, left in the pan,as seen in the photo from this step.Optionally, we will decorate with green parsley leaves and we will get what is seen in the main photo.

It can be consumed immediately, or after it has been kept in the refrigerator, as such or as a side dish to other dishes.

Good appetit!

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