Rice & Peas
You know when a particular dish has become a truly fundamental part of a culture when people use its name (or variation thereof) as a curse word – ‘Peas and Rice’ being used by Jamaicans as a polite replacement for ‘Jesus Christ!’ in an exclamatory context. Rice & Peas IS Sunday dinner in Jamaica, usually served with stewed or curried chicken (replaced with veggie chunks for ital eaters like moi), and for all its simplicity is totally addictive, the kind of food that you want to eat until you are sick because it just tastes so right. The trick is to get the quantities of liquid just right to the rice cooks but does not start falling apart and going sticky – it should be dry but somehow still creamy from the coconut. I freely admit this isn’t an art I’ve quite mastered yet, but I’m rubbish at cooking rice anyway. This is how it’s meant to be done. Ingredients: (I’m guessing this will make enough for about four people)
4 cups of white rice
1 cup dried red peas (red kidney beans – DO NOT use tinned you lazy sods!)
1 coconut, de-shelled and grated (ok, you may use a tin of coconut milk for this one)
Pinch of salt
Sprig of thyme
1 large spring onion
1 small hot pepper (Scotch Bonnet chili – use any type of chili you have)
Method:
Boil a pot of water, put in the red peas, turn off the heat, cover and leave to soak for one hour. Return to heat and simmer for an hour and a half, until peas are soft (if you have a pressure cooker, use it and reduce time by about half an hour). Leave cooked peas in liquid and set aside.
While the peas are cooking, de-shell and grate the coconut (this is a real pain of a task, which is why I said you can use a tin of coconut milk if you want, seeing as that is what we’re trying to make). Mix the shredded coconut meat with the coconut water and blend, adding more water to get it to the consistency of double cream.
When the peas are cooked, wash the rice, put in a large pan and add coconut milk and peas with their juice. Bash the spring onion with the end of a knife and throw in whole, along with the whole hot pepper, salt and thyme. Add cold water until there is about an inch of water above the top of the rice. Bring to the boil, cover and cook for 10-15 minutes, until the rice is cooked but still firm.
Irish Jerk
A dish of my own invention, to make up for the fact that authentic jerked dishes are very vegetarian or vegan non-friendly, the principal ingredients nearly always being chicken or pork (maybe it’s also to atone for my moment of weakness in sampling the jerk chicken – I offer this dish up for your approval and forgiveness, oh lord Kev). The name? Well it’s because Jamaicans call potatoes ‘Irish’, so I was being funny, like…
Ingredients: (again, would hopefully serve about four)
2 medium –sized potatoes
1 sweet potato
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
1 small chunk of hot pepper/Scotch Bonnet (if you us Scotch Bonnet, seriously, keep the chunk SMALL, these things are killer. Otherwise, use whatever chili you prefer in your usual quantities)
2 teaspoons Jerk Seasoning (dry powder form – whatever you do, DON’T use the Maggi/Nestle brand one, it is essentially just spicy MSG and tastes nothing like real jerk. If you want to get all posh and make your own seasoning, mix together pimento, crushed chili flakes, garlic powder, thyme, celery salt)
Oil for frying
Method:
Chop the potatoes roughly into half-inch chunks. Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan and fry the potatoes with half the jerk seasoning. Don’t stir too often – the idea is to cook the potatoes through but give them crispy, jerk-flavoured edges, so a bit of sticking and burning is good (just ignore the way the scorched spices make you cough, it tastes awesome.
Chop the sweet potato into larger chunks and add when the potato starts to brown, along with the rest of the jerk seasoning. Cook until potato and sweet potato are browned on all sides. Slice the onion, finely chop the chili and stir in both. Crush and chop the garlic and fry for a minute.
Gradually add cold water to the pan, a few drops at a time, stirring constantly and waiting until all the water is absorbed by the potato before adding more. When no more water is absorbed and a sauce starts to form, take off the heat and serve with rice.
Dumplings with Brown Stewed Veggie Chunks
Dumplings are to Jamaicans what potatoes are to the British – they are eaten with everything, boiled, fried, cooked on their own or with soup, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And for what are basically just balls of flour and water, they are strangely moreish, maybe because their texture – thick, chewy and heavy – gives you a reassuring feeling that you are going to be stuffed silly after a few of them.
Brown stew is one of the various ubiquitous Jamaican cooking styles that can be adapted to pretty much any main ingredient, and like most Jamaican food, is based on a handful of key flavours – hot pepper, garlic, onion/spring onion, thyme and tomato.
Ingredients:
For the Dumplings:
8 cups flour
2 cups cornmeal (optional)
Water
Pinch of salt
For the veggie chunks:
2 cups TVP/soya chunks
1 large potato
1 onion
1 carrot
3 cloves garlic
Half tin of chopped tomatoes or passata
Quarter of a hot pepper (Scotch Bonnet chili)
Fresh Thyme
Teaspoon Soy sauce
Teaspoon Browning (optional)
Teaspoon jerk seasoning (optional)
Oil for frying
Water
Method:
To make the dumplings, mix the flour, cornmeal and salt in a large bowl. Fill a cup with cold water and add a quarter, mixing with your hands until no more dry mixture sticks together. Repeat, mixing the flour thoroughly each time you add a little water, until all the dry mixture has been combined into a dough. Getting the amount of water just right is important as you don’t want the dumplings to be either too soft and sticky or too dry and crumbly. Add gradually less and less water at a time as you go on, kneading the dough thoroughly each time, to avoid making the mix too wet. The finished dough should be smooth with the consistency of plasticine.
Boil a large pan of water (if you like you can add your own flavours to the pot of water which the dumplings will absorb as they cook. Roll the dough out into a large sausage and break of golf-ball sized chinks, flattening each ball into a disk about half and inch thick. Throw the dumplings into the water once boiled and cook boil for about half an hour.
Peel and chop the potato into small chunks. Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the potatoes, in the jerk seasoning if you are using it (same way as the Irish Jerk recipe). Once the potatoes have started to brown, add the chopped onion and carrot, hot pepper and thyme. Once the onions start to brown, add the chopped garlic and soy sauce, and fry over a high heat for another minute. Reduce the heat and add the veggie chunks, tomato and browning. Add a little water to thin the sauce out and simmer for five to 10 minutes, until the veggie chunks are tender (keep adding a little water if the pot dries out quickly.
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