Of course you can’t duplicate the experience of sitting under the seagrape and mangrove trees on Meads Beach in Anguilla at Blanchards Beach Shack, but you can enjoy an approximation of a Blanchards Big Bowl at home.
The Beach Shack menu advertises “a full meal in a bowl”. Your bowl comes with rice, black beans, pico de gallo, corn salsa, Monterey Jack cheese, Peruvian onion, and crema. Then you choose between blackened mahi, pork carnitas, jerk chicken, jerk pork, roasted shrimp, beef barbacoa, pulled chicken, or jerk shrimp.
You can use cooked white or brown rice, and I am sure that Mexican Rice would be wonderful too.
You can doctor canned beans as described below or start from scratch with dried beans.
Cooked rice
Cooked black beans (try Saucy Black Beans)
Pico de gallo or salsa fresca (try Burrito Loco Salsa)
Corn salsa (try Corn Elote)
Grated Monterey Jack cheese
Small slices of onion
Crema mexicana (or regular sour cream)
Your fish or meat (see below for a nice spice rub for fish or chicken)
Black beans
Mince 1 onion and 2 garlic cloves. Cook gently in 1 tablespoon olive oil until onion is translucent. For a fairly hot sauce, add 1 tablespoon of Penzeys moderately hot chili powder and 1 tablespoon of adobo seasoning (from the Mexican section of the Food Lion with Our Lady of Guadalupe candles, not the Old El Paso section of the Harris-Teeter). Add 1 large can or 3 normal cans of black beans that have been rinsed. Add water to make a sauce.
Spicy fish or chicken bites
1 pound boneless fish or chicken
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons minced garlic or garlic powder
2 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes.
Cut the fish or chicken into bite-size chunks. Salt and pepper the fish or chicken. Mix the chile powder, garlic, paprika, cumin, and red pepper flakes in a bowl. Roll the fish or chicken in this mixture until coated. Heat 2 tablespoons neutral oil such as canola in a skillet. Cook the fish or chicken bites until well browned and crisp.
Assemble the bowls
Start with rice and top with beans and your protein of choice. Finish with the salsas, cheese, onion, and crema.
Have lime wedges and spears of green pepper for garnish.