Frijoles de la Olla

1. To cook the beans, rinse them under cold running water, removing any stones that you may find. In a large sauce pan with a lid, soak the beans in 1 litres of water for 2-4 hours until the middle of a bean is soft (not chalky) or quick soak by bringing to a boil for a couple of minutes then let sit for an hour. Do not drain the soaked black beans as you will loose some of the beautiful black colour.
2. Put the soaking beans in the pan with the water (which is now black) on a medium to high heat, add the epazote, árbol chillies and the onion which has been peeled and diced. Bring to a boil, cover and turn down to a simmer. Cook gently, adding water as necessary until the beans are soft (approx. 2 hours). There should be lots of liquid around the beans and they should be free floating at all times. Add the salt at the end of the cooking time, when the beans are soft.

Recommendation:

Using a pressure cooker for beans gives great results, there is no need to soak, the beans cook evenly and less energy is used, follow the recipe above by putting the rinsed by unsoaked beans in the pressure cooker with the rest of the ingredients, using only 1 litre water, let the pressure cooker come up to full stem, then reduce to low steam and cook for 20 mins.