20 Minutes 
4 servings
By Doreen Colondres
There’s nothing yummier than white rice with red “Habichuelas” (Puerto Rican beans) with pumpkin. Here goes the recipe that “Güelín” (my grandma) taught me.
What you need to have:
- 1 tbsp. of olive oil (pure or canola)
- 2 tsp. of sofrito (go to the sauces section in the main menu of this site to see the recipe of the Sofrito)
- 1 packet of culantro and achiote seasoning
- 1 tspn. of tomato paste
- 1 can of red or pink beans
- 3/4 cups of water or natural chicken broth
- 3 ozs. of cooking ham
- 10 small chunks of pumpkin
- 1 chicken bouillon cube
- 2 culantro leaves finely chopped (also known as Recao)
- 5 salad olives (the ones stuffed with pepper)
- Fresh cilantro (finely chopped)
What you need to do:
- In a deep casserole, heat up the olive oil.
- Then sautee the ham until golden brown.
- Add the Sofrito, the culantro and achiote seasoning, tomato paste and the chicken bouillon cube and let it cook for 5 more minutes (avoid burning).
- Then add the beans (without the liquid in the can), water and chicken broth.
- Add the pumpkin, cilantro and olives and let it simmer uncovered for 15 minutes until the pumpkin gets tender and the liquid has thickened.
You could also make this recipe with white or pink beans as well as with chick peas, instead of red beans. You can use potatoes instead of pumpkin if you don’t have any. The secret is in the sofrito but if you don’t have it, you want to check out the recipe of my Country’s Sofrito in the recipes menu or just finely chop some pieces of the ingredients that you have from there and make sort of a base.
Serve it with white rice… it goes perfectly with your favorite chicken or meat… buen provecho!
