Rice and Peas
Serves 10
Warning: It is vital that dry kidney beans are soaked overnight and cooked thoroughly - they are poisonous! Just as important: all rice dishes must be stored in the fridge.
Note from Mum: This dish is not very easy to make without having tried it before knowing how the end result should be. If it fails the first time don’t worry, practice makes perfect. It has taken me well over 30 years to learn how to do this and it’s still not as good as my Mum’s :-) My kids should know exactly how it should look and taste!!
This goes well with most dishes, but especially so with the Caribbean Chicken coming up next...
Ingredients
1 handful of dried kidney beans
¼ block or 2 sachets of creamed coconut
2 onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, sliced
Large bunch of fresh thyme or self dried
3 or 4 chillies cut in two
1 green pepper, sliced
1 yellow pepper, sliced
1 tbsp salt
5 cups of long grain rice
1700ml (3 pints) water
Method
- Put the beans to soak in the water overnight
- Cook the beans in a pan with a lid under a low heat in the same water until the bean is soft (not mushy) when squeezed together in your fingers. Test with 2 beans, cooking may take an hour or more
- Add more boiling water if liquid drops below about two thirds of original amount
- Add all of the ingredients, apart from the rice, to the beans and cook for a further 20 minutes
- Add the salt at this stage, taste and it should be slightly too salty, if not add some more until the desired taste is achieved
- Wash the rice, add it to the pan of beans and bring it to the boil
- Turn down the heat and leave it to cook undisturbed. When the rice gets the volcanic look, give it a good stir and leave to finish cooking
- Taste. The rice should be cooked and the kidney beans very soft. At this point, it is now ready, but it is best left to stand for about 10 minutes
