SERVES 6-8
Rice and peas is a staple dish in Jamaica and it is served as an accompaniment with other popular Jamaican dishes such as curried goat, chicken stew and meats cooked in the jerk style. However, rice and peas by itself is also a very flavorful dish. What else do you expect? It is cooked in garlic, ginger, thyme, all spice berries and the extra hot Scotch bonnet pepper (Yes, just one of it is enough). The color emanating from the kidney beans gives the entire dish a reddish tinge. In Jamaica, the preparation is often made with green pigeon peas (also known as gungo peas) instead of kidney beans.
1 cup dry kidney beans
3 cups of water
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 scallions, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
5 allspice berries
5 thyme sprigs
1 Scotch bonnet pepper. If you cannot find Scotch bonnet, please use any other hot pepper like habanero.
½ tsp grated fresh ginger
2 tsp salt
½ tsp ground black pepper
1 can of coconut milk (13.5 oz)
2 cups long-grain white rice. I use basmati rice.
1 Soak the kidney beans for at least 8 hours, preferably overnight, in about 4 cups of water. After soaking, drain the water and rinse the kidney beans in clean water.
2 Place the allspice berries, thyme, and Scotch bonnet pepper in a piece of cheesecloth and tie it into a bundle. Alternately, you can also use a cheesecloth pouch.
3 In a large pan, cover the beans with the water and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Stir in the onions, scallions, garlic, ginger, salt, ground black pepper. Also, add the cheesecloth bundle containing the allspice berries, thyme, and Scotch bonnet pepper. Add the coconut milk and bring to a simmer. Cover the pan and simmer over low heat until beans are cooked al dente, about 1 hour. The beans should be almost cooked, but very soft and mushy. They will be cooking more with the rice in the next step.
4 Stir in the rice, and cover and simmer over low heat until the rice is cooked, and the liquid is absorbed, about 30 minutes. Remove from the heat, but keep covered for the next 10 minutes. Then discard the cheesecloth bundle containing the all spice berries, thyme and Scotch bonnet pepper. Using a fork, fluff the rice and beans. Season with salt, as needed.
Rice and peas is a good accompaniment with Jamaican dishes such as curried goat, chicken stew and jerk meats.
Comments