Spanish teacher Javier Salas has a yummy, hearty, and easy breakfast recipe for anyone with basic cooking skills. It is a Costa Rican breakfast dish called “gallo pinto,” which translates to “spotted rooster,” because the dark beans stand out against the white rice like spots.

Salas makes his gallo pinto with white rice, red or black beans, one red bell pepper, one onion, cilantro, nature seasoning, and “salsa Lizano”, a Costa Rican vegetable sauce. He starts off by chopping the onion and red pepper, and then sauteing it in a pan with oil. Once sauteed, Salas adds the rice, beans, seasoning, and sauce to the same pan. The mixture starts out moist, but eventually dries out. When it is almost dry, he adds the cilantro. That’s it! Salas enjoys this dish every morning, sometimes adding eggs, sour cream, cheese, or tortillas.

Thinking the dish sounded easy enough, I felt qualified enough to make it despite my limited cooking experience. I gathered all of my ingredients except for the salsa Lizano, which I was unable to find. Google said that I could substitute the sauce with a mixture of ketchup (two teaspoons), honey (two teaspoons), Worcestershire sauce (one teaspoon), and hot sauce (one teaspoon). I made the mixture, which tasted like a sweet BBQ sauce.

I then got started, following Salas’s steps to a T (with some help from Google for quantities). I used one red pepper, one yellow onion, three cups of white rice, one can of beans, and one bunch of cilantro. I chopped, sauteed, mixed, sprinkled, and waited patiently until the dish dried out. I ended up with a gallo pinto that looked just like the pictures online. But would it taste right?

It did not. I must have underseasoned and undersauced it. The dish was still a yummy breakfast, but it just tasted like beans and rice. However, I trust Mr. Salas’s recipe. Next time, I will go crazy with the salsa Lizano. Moral of the story? No recipe is easy enough for me. •