A "mod" target
You will need:
For the refried beans,
1 tin of kidney beans in water
1 large onion
1 clove of garlic
1 mild green chilli
Olive oil
For the salsa,
1 tin of peeled tomatoes
1 small onion
1 birds eye chilli
1 chicken/vegetable stock cube
squeeze of lemon juice
twist of black pepper
pinch of sugar
For the rice,
some rice
So we've just come out of glut of Bank Holidays, bad news for me - can't stand the amateurs clogging up my local parks and alehouses. But for you, for you hungry modernist, the bank holiday is a chance to hang with your all time idol of pop. Ding fucking dong, who's that at the door dad? It's only Paul Weller. That's who. Right. The. Fuck. On.
Yep, the man known as the undisputed 'Best Mod in Britain' (Paul Weller) is standing outside your front door, and he wants to take you down to Brighton for a Bank Holiday ruck on the seafront and then on to an all nighter at some Locarno. Get your Parka on fucker, gulp down a load of purple hearts, take the Secret Affair album off the dansette, and jump astride your Vespa - you do not want to keep the 'Best Mod in Britain' waiting. You do not want to do that.
48 hours later, and you're back at your awful home, you wave good bye to your new pals:
'Bye bye Phil Daniels and Leslie Ash, Bye Bye Bruce and Rick' you say sadly. Bruce Foxton and Rick Foxton, the Style Council's highly volatile identical twin sibling rhythm section, roar off on their stupid motorbikes. As does Phil Daniels and Leslie Ash. It's been a long weekend, what with all that fighting on the seafront, all that frothy coffee guzzling and all that frugging to the Shirelles and the Merton Parkas. But it's not over yet. Paul Weller wants to hang out with you a bit more, and he wants you to make him one of his favourite meals: Refried Beans with Salsa, and he wants you to serve it up to him so it looks like a 'mod target'. Christ's teeth - we got there in the end.
The reason for the previous three paragraphs of (frankly) utter doggerel is that my wife noticed that when you serve up this sodding recipe - refried beans, salsa, and plain basmati rice - on a blue rimmed plate, it can look very much (a bit) like a 'mod target'. I've been cooking this for about 20 years. I nicked it from a recipe book for fake Mexican food, written by a fake Mexican lady in Asda in Southgate, North London. I couldn't afford the recipe book as I was on the dole at the time, so I committed the instructions to my young, young beautiful mind. Right on Benson, let's do it.
First off, finely chop up the small onion and gently fry it in olive oil until opaque in a large pan. Whilst the onion solemnly does its very cool 'frying' thang, you can open up a can of tomatoes and decant them into a smallish saucepan, turn up the heat and gently, gently cook. While all this 'stuff' is going on crumble a stock cube into the tomatoes. Everyone laughs at stock cubes, including me. This is because they are shit. It doesn't matter, it's only cooking, and this dish is not exactly fine dining. It really isn't. Now, your finely chopped onion should be cooked, so add it to the tomato mess. Slice up a birds eye chilli and bung that in as well. A pinch of sugar, a dash of lemon, a twist of pepper and your tomato salsa is done. All it has to do now is reduce, Bruce.
Paul Weller is busying himself in your front room by laughing at your record collection,
"What the fuck's this?" says Britains Best Mod, as he pulls out a Sonic Youth album. "Not as fucking clever as they fink," says Paul. I have to admit he's got a point. Paul Weller is looking for some Traffic LPs. He won't find any. You need to sort out some sounds in the kitchen. Probably some 'hard bop.' Paul would approve of that. Maybe.
Now that you've got Ornette Coleman freaking the fuck out on his bugle you need to make the refried beans. Easy – roughly chop up the large onion and the garlic and fry for about 10 minutes in the large pan, once the onion is cooked you can chuck the kidney beans in (including the water from the can) with the cooked onions, add in a mild chilli if you fancy and cook over a medium heat for around forty minutes. After about half an hour the kidney beans should have softened up and the water will have 'magically' vanished. There is some science going on here, but I don't believe in science - science is shit. 'Science' is the pastime of warlocks. I reckon the water has just gone into space or something. Now, when you've stopped wondering about where the water's gone it's time to mash up the kidney beans and onions. You will know when you've mashed them enough because they will look like refried beans. Yeah? Ok. Plate. The. Fuck. Up.
It's time to carefully arrange your food in the shape of a 'mod target.' For this you will need a blue plate, now just plonk the food on the plate in the same way I have in the photograph that I have kindly provided at the top of this fucking blog. Oh, you need to serve the food with some fucking rice. You know how to cook rice, right? Ok, it's the moment of truth, time to present your 'Modernist Refried Beans' to Paul, who's angrily awaiting his dinner in the other room. Britain's Best Mod turns off the Small Faces compilation tape he's been listening to and walks over to the table where his food awaits him. He looks at the food for about 5 seconds then walks away from the table.
'Twat,' says Paul Weller as he walks out of your house and gets on his Vespa. The Vespa that will take him back to Woking. Oh well.
'Mod targets,' and Paul Weller notwithstanding, you really should try making this. It's cheap, it's healthy, and although it looks horrible in the photograph, it actually tastes damn good. You can also garnish with some crumbled cheddar cheese and celery. I don't know what the fuck you'd drink with this. Perhaps as you're coming down from a 'weekender' you could serve it with some Mandrax. Does any body still do 'mandies'? If so, can I have some? Bon Appetite.
Yours
LH
