Meera Sodha’s Gorditas with drunken beans, pickles and avocado cream

Traditional Mexican fried bread topped with beery beans and avocado cream

The world over, people make delicious things you can eat with your hands, and one of my favourites is the Mexican gordita – ‘chubby’ in Spanish . It is traditionally made with masa dough, but I have used more readily available cornmeal and topped it with beer-infused beans, beetroot pickles and a sprightly avocado cream.

There are four elements to this dish, but don’t let that put you off. The pickles and avocado cream are fairly quick to make and both those and the beans can be made in advance.

Prep 20 min
Cook 1 hr
Serves 4

For the drunken beans
2 tsp olive oil
1 medium white onion, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
1 medium jalapeño, deseeded and finely chopped
1 ½ tsp salt
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp hot smoky paprika
2 x 400g tins pinto beans, drained
330ml pale ale or dark beer suitable for vegans

For the pickles
250g or 2 medium beetroots, peeled and grated
¼ or 150g red cabbage, finely sliced
100ml apple cider vinegar
1 tsp salt

For the avocado cream
2 small ripe avocados
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
½ tsp salt

For the gorditas
150g fine cornmeal
150g plain flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
160ml-180ml water

Heat the olive oil for the beans in a medium-sized pan over a low heat and, when hot, add the chopped onion and garlic. Cook for eight minutes, until translucent and starting to caramelise, then add the jalapeño, salt, oregano and paprika. Stir to coat the onions, then cook for four minutes to soften the jalapeño. Add the beans to the pan, stir to combine, then increase the heat to high and add the beer. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, prepare the pickles and the avocado cream. For the pickles, combine the beetroot and sliced cabbage in a small mixing bowl and add the vinegar and salt. Mix well so that everything is coated, and leave to pickle for 30 minutes.

For the avocado cream, combine the avocado flesh, vinegar, oil and salt in a blender, and blitz for one or two minutes until completely smooth. Depending on the ripeness of your avocado, you might need to add a teaspoon or two of water to get a silky mayonnaise like texture.

Finally, the gorditas. Mix the cornmeal, flour, salt and baking powder in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the water a little at a time, using a spoon to bring the dough together each time. Once all the water is added, bring the dough together with your hands, knead into a smooth ball and rest for two minutes. Divide the dough into 12 even balls, each weighing around 50g, and roll each out on a lightly floured surface until you have a pleasingly chubby disc of dough roughly 5mm thick.

Fry the gorditas in batches in a heavy-based frying pan over a medium heat – two or three to the pan at a time, depending on the size of your pan. Fry the gorditas for two minutes a side, until crisp on the outside with no dark doughy spots. To serve, top each gordita with a spoonful of beans, some avocado cream and a pinch or two of pickles.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2018/sep/08/vegan-recipe-drunken-bean-and-avocado-gorditas-meera-sodha

Templar’s mexican chilli beans

We used to cook a very lovely Mexican bean dish that along with the kidney beans had some torn off chunks of tofu, all swimming in a suitably Mexican sauce. Sadly, the loinfruits, both great and small, looked at it with that expression on their faces that said “Oh goodie, dog excrement for dinner.” And so with our hearts chastened we would retreat again North of the Mexican border with our packets of tortillas and cornchips slinking behind us.

And then one day, Templar came to our rescue, riding in an a small, shaggy, dust coloured charger, lance held crazily in her hand with wide wind of duct tape mid-shaft where it had been bent slightly during some prior heroic rescue attempt. Flicking her dishevelled hair back from her hooded eyes she looked down from her humble steed and cried “Hola mis amigos. Estoy aquí con una receta de frijoles mexicanos que sus hijos les encantará. Ahora tráeme un vaso de vino y dame un beso.” Which roughly translates as “Hello my friends. I am here with a Mexican bean recipe that your children will love. Now bring me a glass of wine and kiss me.” And so we did both while she busied herself in the kitchen.

Afterwards we begged her to allow us to share her recipe so as to be able to spread the joy around. After brushing the dust from her horse and promising to bring her fresh flowers at dawn every day for a year she granted us her permission. She is THAT sort of gal,

For the putting in:

  • 400g cooked kidney beans
  • Medium onion, chopped
  • Few cloves garlic, crushed
  • Large zuchinni, grated
  • Large carrot, grated
  • 400g finely chopped tomatoes
  • Tbspn powdered cumin
  • Tspn powdered mild paprika
  • Tspn powdered cayenne pepper (or adjust heat to taste)
  • Tspn dried oregano leaves, crushed
  • 2 Tspn cocoa powder
  • 200ml stock
  • (Optional) Tspn brown sugar

For the doing:

  • In a largish saucepan, lightly sauté the onion in a generous splash of olive oil
  • Once the onions are clear, add the garlic and powdered spices. Continue sautéing briefly
  • Add everything else minus the cocoa powder
  • Simmer, covered, stirring regularly to avoid sticking.
  • Once the liquid is mostly reduced add the cocoa and stir through thoroughly

Serve with rice, a bowl of corn chips, perhaps a bowl each of chopped coriander, chopped avocado, and Spanish olives.

Comer con niños felices y un baño en su amor” my friends.

Chilli Con Tofu


A very simple, but not very picturesque meal that The VegHead and SheWhoMustBeFed enjoy very much is a Mexican “Chilli Con Tofu”. Its best served with some plain (brown) rice, and perhaps some soy yoghurt.

And so it was last week, and in doing so The VegHead allowed a little whimsical spontaneity to enter the kitchen. Thus leading to the simple arrangementt of avocado slices on a flat glass plate to create a bowl, which served to hold the yoghurt. Meanwhile some black olives were skewered with tooth picks – half a dozen to a stick. One for The VegHead and one for SheWhoMustBeFed. The toothpick sticks stopped the olives escaping. Olives generally sit fairly passively in a bowl awaiting their fate, but the flat nature of the serving plate on this occasion gave them adventurous ideas of rolling away. A stick through their gizzards soon put an end to their plans!

And seeing as the chilli is very good to eat, but quite boring to take a picture of, we have a picture of the side dish instead.

For the Chilli Con Tofu you will need:

  • 1 cup of cooked kidney beans
  • 1 block of soft/medium tofu (meaning a medium grade, but hopefully on the softish side)
  • 1 medium tomato – chopped
  • 1 small onion – chopped
  • 1 green capsicum (a.k.a “green pepper” if you’re from Disneyland) – chopped
  • 2 cloves of garlic – crushed
  • 1 fresh chilli (or more or less to taste, or substitute equivalent chilli powder)
  • A large blob of tomato paste
  • A large blob of dark miso (or a vegetable stock cube)
  • A small blob of peanut butter
  • 1 generously heaped tablespoon of cumin powder (yes TABLEspoon)
  • 1 teaspoon of coriander powder
  • olive oil
  • water

To make:

  • Sauté the onion, garlic, chilli and powdered spices in a generous pour of olive oil
  • Add the beans. Crumble the tofu in – don’t cube the tofu, mash it which will allow it to soak up more of the flavours. I don’t want to find you using some masher implement here, I want to see you connecting with your food and using your hands. Squeeeeeeze it through your fingers! Stir it all together until the tofu and beans have been thoroughly coated with the spices.
  • Add all the remaining ingredients, together with a cup or more of water. It often helps if you pre-dissolve the miso, tomato paste and peanut butter in some boiled water.
  • Simmer for 20 minutes.
  • If it doesn’t taste “mexicanny” enough – dump in more cumin.