Belize

The dish

A Belizean breakfast is refried beans, eggs with chaya, and fry jacks. Fry jacks are puffy pieces of fried dough. Chaya is a leafy green used in Maya cooking. I cheated and used spinach instead of chaya, mostly because I don’t know where to buy chaya!

What we thought

So good. My wife wants me to put this in our regular breakfast rotation, since refried beans plus fry jacks is a dynamite combo. 4.6/5. Third best breakfast we’ve made.

Ingredients and directions

Refried Beans

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp coconut oil
• ½ yellow onion, finely diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ habanero or other hot chili, seeded and minced (optional)
• ¼ tsp cumin
• 1 can (15 oz) red kidney beans, undrained
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, chili, and cumin and cook for 3–4 minutes, until softened.
2. Lower the heat to medium-low. Add the beans along with their liquid. Simmer 8–10 minutes, mashing the beans as they cook until the beans are a reach the texture you want. Keep some liquid in the pan — they’ll thicken further off the heat and dry out fast.
3. Season with salt and pepper.

Note: A potato masher works better than fork but the beans get stuck in the masher. Regardless of what you use, you want to mash them into a paste.

Chaya Eggs

Ingredients

• 4–5 eggs
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1 tbsp oil or butter
• ¼ small onion, finely diced
• ¼ red bell pepper, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 cup spinach, chopped
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Beat the eggs with the milk.
2. Heat the oil in a pan over medium. Sauté the onion, red pepper, and garlic 2–3 minutes, until soft.
3. Add the spinach and cook 1–2 minutes, until wilted and any water has cooked off.
4. Pour in the eggs, season with salt and pepper, and scramble until set.

Note: I used spinach because chaya can be hard to get. If you find real chaya, boil the leaves in a non-aluminum pot for at least 5 minutes and discard the water before adding them to the pan. Raw chaya is toxic.

Fry Jacks

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 tbsp butter, cold and cubed
• ¾–1 cup coconut milk
• Oil, for frying

Directions

1. Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Cut in the butter with a paddle attachment.
2. Add the coconut milk gradually, mixing until a soft, slightly sticky dough forms. You may not need all of the coconut milk.
3. Divide into 2 rounds, cover, and rest 15–20 minutes.
4. Roll each round out to about 10–12 inches across and cut into triangles or strips. Cut a slit in each piece if you want them flat. Leave them whole if you want them to puff into a pocket for sandwiches.
5. Heat about 1 inch of oil to 350°F. The oil is ready when a scrap of dough sizzles and rise to the surface immediately.
6. Fry each piece of dough 1–2 minutes per side, until golden and puffed.
7. Drain on a wire rack. Serve hot.