Substitutions: I bet you can guess the first one!
I didn't have "sweet smoked paprika", just normal paprika
Why doesn't anyone sell fresh oregano? But dried was fine anyway
Rating: 9
Well chaps, looks like the pinto drought ends RIGHT HERE. That's right, my "Chilean squash and bean stew" features the mythical speckled bean. To answer Rhys' question, there is nothing the least bit special about these. Having said that, I guess I'm just not a bean conoisseur, I mean I was 22 before I realised you could buy them without tomato sauce on them.
What you see above is not tomato sauce however, it's just, like, stock. But it wasn't boring! The secret is in the squash--of course, squash is amazing--and those South Americans know what to do with squash. Well, they ought to, since they've cultivated it for 2,000 years (not fact checked). I had never boiled squash before but when you do, the sugar leaches out into the water and the squash disintegrates a bit, leaving you with a deliciously sweet squash mush. I defy Carol, Queen of the Thick Sauces, to find fault with my soup consistency here. The sweetness goes brilliantly with the sweetcorn and the paprika and the mushiness is sharpened up a bit with some squeaky green beans.
Now, for me, this was a bit of a faff because I was using dried beans, but I reckon with canned beans you could knock this one out in 30 minutes, making it another ONE POT SUCCESS which I will come back to again and again. Me gusta!
