This dish has 4 main prep processes, the below is portioned out roughly for 6 people

This is a spectacular combination of flavours and nutritional elements, with a South American influence. It’s quite a complex dish to make but totally worth it. Using dried black beans requires overnight soaking but increases the quality of the dish, so if you have time, hydrate the beans yourself, otherwise use tinned beans.

 

Black Beans

Ingredients:

2 cups dried Black Beans or 3 tins hydrated Black Beans.

3 large brown onions.

1/4 cup coconut oil

1 tbsp smoked paprika

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/4 tsp ground coriander – add more if you like it, another 1/4 tsp

handful freshly chopped parsley

salt and pepper

1 litre vegetable stock or water

Method:

If using dried beans, soak them over night and cook them off for an hour on the stove the next day.

Chop the onions very finely, as fine as your fine self thinks is fine, or grate them.

In a large pot, fry the onion off in 1/4 cup coconut oil until the onion is soft but not browned.

Add the smoked paprika, cumin, oregano, coriander, parsley, salt and pepper.

Cook on medium heat until looking and smelling saucy – aprox 8 minutes.

When the mixture is lookin bubbly and like everything is united as one new formation, add hydrated beans and cover with water/stock so the liquid is 1.5 inches above the mix.

Bring to boil then cover and let simmer for 20 minutes stirring every 5 mins.

Smell check in to see if the spices are where u want them to be and add where needed. It’ll thicken up nice and good kinda sludgy loving looking.

Reduce the heat to low. Let simmer for another 45 minutes, watching all the time while you prepare the other parts of the dish. Don’t let it boil. Add water or stock where necessary, but don’t let it get too wet or the beans will loose their shape.

 

Red Rice

Ingredients:

3 cups red rice

a handful of kombu seaweed

1 teaspoon dried tarragon

1 tin coconut milk

a pinch of salt

a handful of fresh coriander, chopped

Juice of 1/2 a lime

Method

Place rice in a rice cooker and cover in water, filling the water to sit about 1 inch above the rice. Add Kombu seaweed and stir through. Steam the rice. When the rice has 5 minutes left to cook is soft-firmish, add tarragon and coconut milk and stir through. Let the rice cook like this for the last 5 minutes. When cooked add salt to taste, lime juice and the coriander and stir through. Set aside.

 

Roasted Sweet Potato

Ingredients:

1 large sweet potato

Olive oil

Salt

Peel the sweet potato and dice it into 2 com cubes. You should have about 2 cups of diced sweet potato.

Cover them in olive oil and salt and roast for 40 minutes in a hot oven.

 

Spinach

Ingredients

1 bunch Chinese Spinach

4 cloves garlic

4 tbspoons toasted sesame oil.

Method:

Sauté the chinese spinach in garlic and toasted sesame oil.

 

And then Stack with Love!

Now, you have 4 delicious dishes sitting ready to stack! It’s ok if they cool down, the dish is great served at room temperature.

The order goes: Red Rice on the bottom, then the spinach, then black beans, and then sweet potato.

Find a hollow cylinder of some description and place it on the plate. You can cut up an empty circular plastic container – remove the top so its hollow. Fill sequentially, using a spoon to pack each dish down, then lift the cylinder off so you have a lovely round stack on each plate.

garnish with a slice of marinated roast peppers and some fresh coriander.

serve with a chim churri sauce or pesto. The sauce we used on the dish pictured was a secret Chin Churri recipe by Antonietta’s brother. Find a chim churri sauce that you like, otherwise a good pesto will do. You don’t need much as the flavours in the stack should shine through, but it adds a little intensity to the occasional mouthful.