I dedicate this first post to my mom, since this is her recipe for what she calls "the perfect food."
She'd have a good argument if anyone tried to oppose her on this opinion. My mom's black bean salad is a simple recipe for an amazing combination of flavors, textures, and colors. It's an eye-catching, delicious dish that's packed with vitamins and minerals (thank you, bell peppers), protein (mmm, beans!), and--though they're both apparently bad words nowadays--a few sugars and carbs from the corn to give you a nearly immediate energy boost.
In college, I made this salad with two girlfriends as part of a delicious dinner.
"I just want to warn you, Alice," said Kylie (as far as I remember), "I hate raw bell pepper."
Holly chimed in, "And I hate raw onion."
"Just trust me," I said--or should have said, if I didn't.
(That was the night, by the way, that Holly showed me a neat trick for getting the scent of onion and garlic off your hands. Just rub your wet hands on the metal faucet of the sink while washing them. The scientist in me wonders why this neutralizes the odor so well. The poet in me is determined to believe it's magic.)
That night, the salad was an unbelievable success.
"You've made me love bell pepper!" exclaimed Kylie.
"You've made me love raw onion!" exclaimed Holly.
I think there was also some talk of wanting to marry the salad and have its babies. If that's not a review worth publicizing, I don't know what is!
The beauty of the salad is that all of its flavors balance so well that it brings out each of the ingredients without any of them showing themselves too extremely. I think this is true of any good salad. But it never ceases to amaze me how perfectly the sweetness of the corn and the "greenness" of the peppers offset the intense, sulfurous bite of the red onion, while the beans give a bass note of earthiness and add a fullness to the salad that other vegetarian salads simply don't have. In fact, I often eat just a bowl of this salad and feel like that's a meal in itself.But another beautiful thing is how very versatile this black bean salad is. It's wonderful as a salsa, eaten with tortilla chips or thrown into a taco. I love to pile it into sandwiches or on top of more substantial, meaty dishes. I've even toyed with the idea of heating it up and seeing where that takes me, but I haven't gotten to that point just yet.
Over the years, I've tweaked this salad in several different ways, depending on the situation and the ingredients I have on hand. When I've lived in places where canned black beans were rare or nonexistent, I'd often use chickpeas/garbanzo beans, or cannelini/white beans, or red beans, which probably provide the best substitute. Being a certifiable garlic nut, I usually use more garlic than you'd imagine. On days I don't have lime juice in the fridge, lemon juice works well. I add more salt when I'm planning to eat the salad without tortilla chips, and I cut back on it when I'm taking it to a party to play the part of a gorgeous salsa. The fresh cilantro gives the salad an extra green kick--one that I feel is almost festive--but I've never seen my mom put it in her version of the salad, and I never think twice about omitting it if I don't have cilantro on hand. And the different flavors and colors of the three different bell peppers is very nice, but I substitute colors when necessary. What's important is the proportion of bell pepper to onion to corn to beans, just as the proportion of acid to oil is important for the dressing. If you've got that, I can pretty much guarantee you'll love it. So do a bit of cutting and tossing, and dig in!
Black Bean Salad
1 each red, green, and yellow bell pepper -- diced
1 medium red onion -- diced
1 15 oz. can yellow corn -- drained
1 clove garlic (or to taste) -- minced
1 tsp. fresh cilantro (optional, or to taste) -- minced
1/2 cup olive oil
4 Tbl. red wine vinegar
1 tsp. lime juice
1 15 oz. can black beans -- drained and rinsed
salt and black pepper to taste
Combine the bell peppers, onion, corn, garlic, and cilantro in a bowl. Add the olive oil, vinegar, and lime juice; mix. Add the beans; mix. Season to taste with the salt and pepper.
As a side note, I find this salad decently quick and easy to prepare, but I've sometimes used what I call the "Jamie Oliver Method" when I'm lazy or need to cut some time off all the veggie chopping. For his chopped salads, Jamie Oliver sometimes chops everything up together on one cutting board, starting with what he wants chopped more finely, and adding ingredients as he goes along. In this case, I start by mincing the garlic, and then I throw the peeled and halved red onion on top of the pile of garlic. Pivoting my knife around its tip, I chop the garlic and onion, pushing the pile back together when it's gotten too spread out. I then add the seeded bell peppers, which I've often cut into halves or quarters, and I continue chop chop chopping, and pushing everything back together as I go, until it's all ready to go in the mixing bowl with the corn. Once you've got the feel for this method, you can really crank this salad out in no time!
