Jag (Jagacida, Cape Verdean Beans and Rice)

[js]
It is an ongoing project of mine to incorporate more legumes into my diet.

Growing up, beans made scarce in our household. Save for the occasional desserts with bean pastes in them, we never ate beans. Bean-eating must have skipped two generations in our family.

A couple of weeks back, I bought some dried lima beans because I couldn't find the canned ones. I get canned beans because I have always been intimidated by dried ones, but I really should be buying dried because they are cheaper and I do have more control vis a vis the sodium.

When we were looking for a side dish to go with our Portuguese wine-marinated pork stew, we lucked out and found a dish called "Jag," short for Jagacida. Oh goodie, the bean-and-rice dish called for lima beans, which I already had soaking that day.

[ts]
Of course, you know we had all sorts of fun saying the name. JAG!

[js]
The recipe called for sweating an onion in some olive oil. Add some paprika (I used about a teaspoon of smoked hot paprika) to the onions and continue to sweat the onions until lightly brown. Then some minced parsley (I used about 8 sprigs) to the mix.

At this point, I took about 2 cups of rice and dropped the grains in with the onions and parsley. I let them toast for a couple of minutes before I added in 6 cups of water.

Bring to a boil and let it simmer until the rice is done. When the rice is done, mix in the lima beans. The lima beans were cooked separately and then drained before being added to the rice.

[js]
The dish, for something so simple, really tasted very rich, almost buttery. In fact, it even tasted like the rice had been simmered in chicken stock, which it wasn't.

I ate this with the simple sautéed kale with some hazelnut gremolata on top.

It was very good, very filling, very comforting dish.

So, how much did this filling and comforting dish cost?



Costing
[js]
For those of you who are interested, here's the breakdown.
(I'm practicing for Hobo Mondays at Thursday Night Smackdown. Check it out.)

Kale and Jagacida = 4 servings
Kale, 2 bunches = $3.99
Lima Beans, approximately 150 g = $1.33
Parsley, 8 sprigs, stalks and all = $0.25
Onion = $0.50
Rice, approximately 2 cups = $1.80
Lemon, 1 = $0.50
Garlic, 4 cloves = $0.15
TOTAL = $8.52 (CAD)

The hazelnut gremolata is a "fancy-ifying" touch, but us plebeians can do without it. Although without the hazelnuts, the gremolata would not cost anything extra, because we can use about a couple of sprigs of parsley, plus the garlic, plus the zest of the lemon to make the gremolata.

Bear in mind, the above total is in Canadian dollars, so with the current exchange rate (CAD1.0000 = USD0.7980), it works out to $6.80 (USD).

Let's call it a grand total of 7 US dollars and we'll throw in a couple dollar's worth of hazelnuts to keep it under 10 bucks for 4 people.


Costing for the entire meal: Pork, Kale, Jag
[js]
I just realized that the picture of the plated dish includes the wine-marinated pork stew we did as the main.

Now, if we were going to include the pork into the mix, I would say that the pork, jagacida, and kale would serve 6 people very, very well.

There was 2.5 pounds worth of pork at $3.88 per pound, totalling $9.70. We had a bottle of wine, I'm guessing it's about 10 dollars a bottle, and used up a cup of it for the marinade, or $2.50. The subtotal for the pork stew dish comes to $12.20.

Vinho d'Alhos (Pork) = 6 servings
pork butt, 2.5 pounds = $9.70
white wine = $2.50
Pork Total = $12.20 (CAD)
Kale + Jag Total = $8.52 (CAD)

GRAND TOTAL = $20.72 (CAD)

Converted, this is USD16.53, or $2.76 per serving.

Not bad at all. Unfortunately, this whole spread (meat, starch, vegetable) is just a little bit over the alloted total of $13 for 6 people per Hobo Mondays rule. Even if we got less generous and stretched out the dinner offering to 8 people, it would still be over the alloted $16 -- by just 53 cents -- for 8 people.

Dang it. I'm almost afraid I'm going to be smacked and told to make these numbers work. ;)


[eatingclub] vancouver Portuguese meal
Vinho d'Alhos (Portuguese Wine and Garlic Marinated Pork)
Sautéed Kale
Jag (Jagacida, Cape Verdean Beans and Rice)
Hazelnut Gremolata

Other Portuguese dishes
Caldo Verde (Portuguese Kale and Chorizo Soup)

Jag recipe from PortugueseCooking.com
http://www.portuguesecooking.com/recipes/main_dishes/jag_jagacita
(note: We tried searching for "jagacita", but found no sites! We later discovered that most sites spelled it with a "d".)

Wikipedia: Cape Verde