Tapas are a wide variety of appetizers, or snacks, in Spanish cuisine. The portions are normally small and can be hot or cold. It’s traditional in Spain to combine several tapas to make a full meal. Today I am going to share rice and beans tapas recipe which can be one of your tapas or can be a side dish for your meal.

Ingredients:

-          1 canned black beans (you can use 1.5 cup raw black beans boiled and drained)

-          1 cup uncooked rice

-          2 tomatoes finely chopped

-          1 tsp chilli sauce

-          salt to taste

-          1/4 cup cilantro

-          tostada deep shells (optional)

-          1 tsp olive oil

Ingredients for Cilantro dip

-          1 cup cilantro

-          1 cup plain yogurt

-          pinch of salt

-          3 green chilli

Preparation:

-          Soak rice for an hour

-          In a pan heat oil

-          Add drained rice and sizzle for 2-3 minutes

-          Add tomatoes, salt and 2/5 cups of water

-          Boil for 5-7 minutes

-          Add drained black beans and cilantro

-          Stir rice carefully and let the water completely be soaked

-          Turn of the heat once rice and beans are ready and no water is left.

-          For cilantro dip, add all the ingredients in the blender and blend it to make dip.

-          You can serve it in tostada deep shells or in small pates and garnish with cilantro dip.

Tips:

Rice and beans can be excellent side dis for a Mexican meal. You can make shells at home using moulds and deep frying them or baking them. I will make them by frying corn tortillas.

Molasses is a by-product of the refining of sugarcane into sugar. It’s syrup that can have various usages in recipes. Instead of sugarcane, we are going to prepare Pomegranate Molasses. Since it has sweet and tangy fruit taste we can use as salad dressing, ketchup or chutney or any other condiment. It can be refrigerated and stores for 6 months for later use. We are going to prepare very quick chaat recipe with its use.

Ingredients:

-          6 Big pomegranates

-          1/2 cup sugar

-          100 gm chana dal (store bought)

-          100 gm bundi (store bought)

-          1/4 cup bell pepper, finely chopped

-          1/4 cup tomatoes, finely chopped

-          1 tsp green chilies finely chopped

-          1/2 cup cilantro

-          Salt to taste

Preparation:

-          Pit 6 pomegranates an take the seeds into bowl (How to pit Pomegranate??)

-          Now blend them in a blender and make juice out of it leaving half a cup of seeds aside for garnish.

-          Pour the juice through the drainer so that unwanted coarse paste remains behind.

-          Add the juice in the pan and turn on the heat.

-          Add sugar and pinch of salt.

-          Let it simmer for atleast 30 to 40 minutes.

-          It should reduce to 1/4th in portion.

-          When you see the texture like ketchup, the molasses is ready.

-          Let it cool and store it in airtight container in refrigerator.

-          In a mixing bowl mix, mix channa dal, boondi, chillies, chopped bellpepper and tomatoes, pomegranate seeds and cilantro and mix well.

-          Add pinch of salt and 5 tsp of molasses and mix well.

-          Your yummy chaat is ready to be served.

Tips:

-          Do not add any water when making juice out of pomegranate seeds. Boil it enough so that there is no natural water content of fruit left. Molasses can be used as salad dressings. It can also be used as a glaze for desserts. When it  is added to any dish, it doesn’t make it soggy and remains crisp for longer period of time.