JAMAICAN RICE AND PEAS

Let me start off by confusing you! This dish isn’t actually made with peas, it’s made with beans, red beans, also called kidney beans! Are you still there? *crickets chirping* PERFECT! I love Jamaican rice and peas, with jerk pork or jerk chicken or escovitched fish and fried plantains with a side of festivals *a sweet fried dough*.

I’ve had a lot of exposure to Jamaican foods. I worked at JAMWEST Caribbean foods for a while and the best part was getting to eat all the delicious food everyday and listening to Jamaican Patois that I could barely understand, and listening to stories from Chef Patrick while he cooked corn meal porridge :). It was truly amazing watching the giant pots of rice and barrels of jerked meats being cooked, and that rum cake from Miss Verona was so divine. Oh and how could I forget about the patties, and fresh juices and hiding in the walk in fridge to ‘sample’ dishes and getting locked inside hehehehe. Good times!

Here’s a much smaller recipe for rice and peas

• 8 ounces small dried red beans or 8 ounces red kidney beans
• 1 quart water
• 16 ounces chicken broth or 16 ounces chicken stock or 16 ounces water
• ¹⁄₂ cup coconut milk
• 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
• ¹⁄₂ teaspoon ground allspice
• 2 scallions, finely chopped
• ¹⁄₂ cup white onion, chopped
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• 1/2  teaspoon black pepper
• 1 ¹⁄₂ teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 scotch bonnet pepper (left whole) or you can slice it if you want lots of heat!
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 2 ¹⁄₄ cups uncooked long grain rice

DIRECTIONS

1. Rinse and sort beans and place in a stockpot.
2. Cover with several inches of water and soak overnight,-or- bring to a boil, boil gently for 3 minutes, then remove from heat, cover, and allow to sit undisturbed for 1 hour.
3. Drain and rinse beans.
4. Bring to a boil with chicken stock, water, and coconut milk.
5. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 1 1/2-2 hours or until beans are tender and creamy.
6. Add the thyme, allspice, scallion, onion, garlic, scotch bonnet, brown sugar, uncooked rice, salt and pepper.
7. Check the level of liquid over the rice and make sure there is at least one inch of liquid (if not, you may add water or broth to cover).
8. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes or until rice is tender.
9. Serve hot as a side dish.
10. For vegetarian,use water not the chicken broth or stock.

I served the rice and peas, along side jerk pork, which is cooked pretty much the same way as jerk chicken and a tropical salsa! Put some calypso music on in the background and I felt like I was back at home 🙂