Making rice and peas in the Caribbean is a sign of effort and love.
Typically made on a Sunday when family and friends would gather for a meal, having rice and peas on the table is a symbol that you’ve put in that extra bit of effort into the meal prepared.
It’s not the fact that you spent ages sourcing Ingredients to season them up and marinade them overnight .. Nope, it’s the rice and peas! And to be fair, a good rice and peas, seasoned to perfection, cooked in coconut milk with herbs and seasonings is something that is hard to resist!
Nowadays, rice and peas isn’t necessarily eaten only on a Sunday but it’s still a symbol of a little effort going into a meal.
I’ll often make rice and peas along with any other dishes which use beans during the week and it’s almost guaranteed that I’ll always have some left over.
Recently I’ve started freezing my left over beans meaning that I have a mix of kidney beans, black eyed beans, gungo peas and various others stashed in my freezer ready for a meal like this!
To give the dish some subtle smokey flavours and a little depth, I’ve used Myristica’s Caribbean BBQ Rub. To pack the dish with flavour and give it that kick, I add some of Myristica’s Everyday Caribbean Seasoning.
Easy and full of protein this vegan meal is most importantly quick!
If you have a slow cooker and don’t want to do the first steps which involve frying then you can simply whack everything together except the water and halve the tomato purée quantity.
Slow cookers always seem to increase the water content so I always adjust mine with more tomato purée if I need to at the end.
I’ll often serve this with some whole roast sweet potato and some fresh avocado slices sprinkled with a little sea salt!
Ingredients
1/2 an onion, diced
1 small clove of garlic
200g of mixed beans
2 teaspoons of Myristica’s Caribbean BBQ Rub
1 heaped teaspoon of Myristica’s Everyday Spice Blend
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
2 teaspoons of tomato purée
100 - 200ml of water
50g of sweetcorn
Coconut oil
Method
1. Heat the coconut oil over a medium heat and when hot sauté the onions
2. When the onions are soft add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes
3. Add the spices and stir
4. Add the chopped tomatoes and bring up to a simmer
5. Add 100ml of the water, the tomato purée and the sweetcorn
6. Stir and bring back up to simmer again
7. Leave to gently simmer for 5-10 minutes
8. Adjust with water if it’s too thick. I like to add the water while it’s still simmering as I stir so that it can combine with the other ingredients.
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