Rice and Peas

Unlike most of the entries in the Other Peoples’ Rice section, this doesn’t generally function as its own complete meal, and really acts as more of a side. Since I really only know how to make one thing that properly accompanies this, and since that one thing does in fact involve you committing to a delicious but lingering curry aroma in your kitchen for several days, I don’t make this OPR dish all that frequently. But I love to make it and I love to eat it, and if ever I find myself with excess oxtail or curry goat gravy on hand, this is what I use to soak it up.

Incidentally, if you don’t feel like going to all this trouble, there is a quickie version of this which uses canned beans and comes surprisingly close to hitting the rice and peas spot. I’m not going to include the link to the recipe here, since you really should make your way through a proper version found below and even get taken on a fanciful detour about coconuts, but if you make it all the way to the end you’ll be rewarded with a very acceptable quickie alternative, which, just like a quickie in bed, is sometimes more satisfying precisely because you have achieved a normally more labor-intensive outcome so quickly.

This recipe, along with this one, employs the genius principle of cooking rice in water that has already been used to cook beans. The beaniness – color and flavor and consistency – which has infused the water is then used to infuse the rice. Genius. Throughout this collection, we’ve seen rice or other grains cooked with chicken stock many times – this is, in essence, cooking rice with bean stock. The exact amount of water, which is important to the final character of your rice dish, is hard to pinpoint in a recipe like this. A bit of trial and error will be necessary to get this perfect, since a lot of different elements contribute to the reduction of the liquid. In addition to all the factors you’d expect, like the size of your pot (bigger pot means more surface area means more evaporation, genius) and the type and brand of rice you use, the biggest wild card seems to be how long you soak your beans for. If you’ve soaked your beans for a long time and they cook quickly, you’ll have more liquid in your pot than if you haven’t soaked them enough and they take longer to cook. The following recipe is based on soaking the beans for 2 hours and using a particular brand of basmati rice – in this recipe more than others, perhaps, you’ll have to experiment to get everything right, and also to know how to adjust based on what you’re working with as you start off. I think it’s probably better to start with too little liquid than too much, since you can add as you go more easily than you can subtract. Don’t let me discourage you, however – this ain’t that complicated.

The coconut milk adds to the volume of liquid but also to the flavor – it is as much about seasoning as it is about simply adding liquid. If you want to go really Ital you can make your coconut milk from a fresh coconut, which is really quite simple and many guides to doing so can be found on the internets. The result tends to be a fresher, lighter tasting milk than the canned version – which tends to impart less of a coconutty flavor to the finished rice. So what you do all depends on your taste, but it’s worth doing it from scratch at least once, to find out how it’s done by the real revolutionaries. Those that make it from scratch on a more regular basis tend to have chickens to whom they feed the leftover coconut pulp, but if you don’t have chickens I also hear that it makes a wonderful fertilizer, and there are probably countless other uses for it. Coconuts are one of nature’s truly magnificent designs, and there are innumerable well-documented benefits to the human body and mind. The stories of substituting coconut water for human plasma in the Pacific Theater turned out to be greatly exaggerated but I can personally attest to the incredible efficacy of a fresh coconut in combatting a wicked hangover. This is not germane to this recipe, but file it away in case you need it one day (as I have): in addition to all their wonderful nutritional benefits, coconuts are the perfect fuel for starting a fire. Split open the dried husks and the fibers, rich in fat as we all know, make perfect kindling, and the coconut’s concave interior helps radiate heat inward and protect a small fire from the wind. If you’re ever marooned on a tropical island, which becomes a more and more enticing possibility the older I get, your best bet for starting a fire quickly and amateurishly are dried coconut husks. Burns easy, burns hot. What a miracle creation. Anyway, after you get your fire going, let’s hope some sacks of rice and beans wash up on shore. If they do, this recipe should be your next step, and then following that you should see if you can’t set up a basic pot still and make a decent moonshine using coconut pulp as your mash. And if you get all that going your only worry is making sure that a passing ship never sees your cooking fire and sends someone to rescue you.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup red kidney beans
• 5 cups water
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 scallions, white and green parts, cut on the bias in ¼ inch rings
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 whole scotch bonnet pepper
• ¼ tsp allspice
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 12-oz can coconut milk
• 2 cups basmati rice, washed
• Salt and pepper

Directions:

Fully submerge the beans in plenty of water and soak for 2 hours. Then drain them and place in a dutch oven along with the 5 cups of water, onion, scallions, garlic, scotch bonnet, allspice, salt, pepper, and thyme. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook with the lid on for about 1 hour, until the beans are just completely plump and done, but not falling apart.

At this point you should remove the thyme stems (the leaves should all have fallen off into the bean stock) and, depending on how much heat you like, the scotch bonnet. I like leaving it whole and keeping it in the entire time. If you want less heat, you can remove it now. If you want more heat, you should burst it now, so that the seeds and oils from the interior mingle throughout the dish. As you know, scotch bonnets are extremely powerful, but they also have a very distinct and delicious flavor that I associate with African and Caribbean cuisine as a signature flavor, and it tends to be irreplaceable and certainly not replicable through vinegar-based hot sauces, no matter how spicy.

Once the thyme is removed and you’ve dealt with the scotch bonnet as you see fit, add the rice, give it a good stir, and then add the coconut milk. Add a bit more salt and pepper and stir again, then bring to a boil. When it is just boiling, reduce the heat to very low and cover. Cook, without peeking or stirring for 15 minutes. If it is way too dry you should hear it crisping and crackling before then and you’ll want to open it up and add more liquid. If not – check out its progress after 15 minutes. It should still have a bit of liquid left but be almost done. If it’s way too dry, add more water 1 cup at a time by sprinkling evenly over the top of the rice but not stirring if it can be avoided, and then covering quickly. After the rice has cooked for about 20-25 minutes, depending on the type, it will be done. There may be some coconut milk foam or other particles on top – either way, stir to fluff and mix thoroughly.

Hopefully you’ve got some curry goat gravy or oxtail gravy or some jerk chicken handy. Serve immediately or while still warm and enjoy.

And if you’ve made it this far, next time you’re craving this try the quickie version found here.