Britain and Ireland · Volume 37, South Asian and Caribbean Britain
Rice and Peas
Jamaica, and every Windrush household's own Sunday dish
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 1 hour
- Researched
- 4 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Jamaica, and every Windrush household's own Sunday dish. Kidney beans, coconut milk, and the meal that made a foreign kitchen feel like home again.
As tradition built it
Serves 6. About 1 hour, plus soaking if using dried beans.
Ingredients
- 400 g tinned kidney beans, drained, liquid reserved
- 400 ml coconut milk
- 300 g long grain rice, rinsed
- 2 spring onions
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 scotch bonnet, whole and unpierced
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- to taste salt and black pepper
Method
- Combine the coconut milk, reserved bean liquid, spring onion, garlic and thyme in a large pot, and bring to a simmer.
- Add the kidney beans, and simmer 10 minutes to let the flavours combine.
- Stir in the rice, and add water if needed so the liquid sits about 2cm above the rice.
- Add the whole scotch bonnet, unpierced so it perfumes rather than overwhelms with heat, and season with the salt and black pepper.
- Bring to the boil, then cover and reduce to the lowest simmer, 18 to 20 minutes, until the rice is tender and the liquid absorbed.
- Remove the scotch bonnet before serving, fluffing the rice through.
What a modern chef changes
The same dish, built with more control over how the coconut milk and rice actually cook together.
Kit note, not tied to a numbered rung.
Method
- Toast the rinsed rice briefly in a little oil before any liquid goes in, sealing the grain's surface so it holds together and separates cleanly rather than turning starchy and clumped.
- Cook the beans and coconut milk base in a pressure cooker first, exactly as Windrush households themselves adopted the technology to make a weeknight version of this dish possible, then finish the rice conventionally, a genuine continuity with the original domestic technique rather than an imported shortcut.
- Rest the covered pot off the heat for a full 10 minutes once the liquid is absorbed, letting the rice finish steaming gently rather than catching on the base from residual direct heat.