Rice and peas

As tradition built it

Rice and peas

Serves 4. About 35 minutes.

Ingredients

• 480ml coconut milk
• 360ml water
• 1 stalk escallion, crushed
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 1 tin red kidney beans
• ½ tsp salt
• 600ml rice
• 1 small Scotch bonnet, whole

Method

1. Bring the coconut milk and water to the boil in a 3 litre pot.
2. Add the escallion, onion, thyme, beans and salt and stir well.
3. Stir in the rice and set the whole Scotch bonnet on top. Cover and bring it back to the boil.
4. Lower the heat and cook until the grains are tender. Stir gently so the pepper does not burst.

Notes

The recipe is Grace Foods'. Taneisha Morris soaks dried kidney beans overnight with escallion, garlic, ginger, thyme and Scotch bonnet, boils them in their soaking water 30 minutes to an hour, adds pimento, coconut milk and a bouillon cube, then the rice, and steams it 10 minutes off the heat. At Christmas she makes it with green gungo peas the same way.

What a modern chef changes

Toasted rice, an aromatic infusion

Method

1. Toast the rice briefly in coconut oil before the liquid goes in, for a nuttier, more separate grain.
2. Cook the coconut milk element sous vide with the whole aromatics, thyme, garlic, Scotch bonnet, sealed and held at a controlled low temperature to infuse fully.
3. Strain and use as the cooking liquid, a cleaner infusion than simmering the aromatics loose through the pot.