Red and Green Bean and Cheese Quesadillas with Sweet Potato Salsa

From New Vegetarian, Robin Asbell, Chronicle Books, 2009.

I seem to have been obsessed with Mexican flavours lately but there has been a gap from them for I have been holidaying in Kakadu and Darwin and eating out. But what’s the first thing I make when I return to Sydney and begin cooking again: Mexican food.

These quesadillas sounded interesting to me as they did not have the usual filling and the sweet potato salsa definitely sounded to be very different.

For the salsa I cooked a cup of sweet potato and placed it into a blender. To it I added a peeled garlic clove, about half a cup of coriander leaves, 2 tablespoons lime juice, 2 tablespoons olive oil, a good pinch of chilli flakes and salt. The ingredients were churned, tasted for seasoning (a little more salt added) and placed in a bowl for serving. Despite my doubt this turned out to be a really tasty salsa.

For the quesadilla filling, I placed in a bowl ½ cup edamame and ½ cup red beans (the recipe called for black soya beans but I did not have them so used a can of Mexican beans which were in a sauce). With a fork I mashed the beans just a little. To the two beans I added ½ teaspoon salt and about 2 teaspoons chipotle in adobo sauce, well chopped. I grated a cup and a half of tasty cheddar cheese and mixed this in.

Three 15cm tortillas were laid out and the mixture spread over them to about 1cm from the edge. Another three tortillas were placed over them. They were then fried one by one in an oiled pan for about 2 minutes per side, pressing them down a little to aid them to stick together.

I served these with the sweet potato salsa and a lemony guacamole. The salsa went perfectly with them; the guacamole was okay but not as perfect a match as the salsa. The quesadillas were full of flavour, cheesy and spicy with an occasional crunch from the edamames

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔