This is a favorite recipe in our house, adapted from the rice and beans dish served all over Belize. Menu suggestion: serve with Jerk chicken or stewed chicken and fried plantains.
Ingredients
Serves: 8
- olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 red pepper, seeded and finely chopped
- white wine (to taste)
- 2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
- 2 cups uncooked long-grain rice (jasmine works well)
- 1 can can coconut milk
- 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 can white bean variety (small white, navy beans, etc), drained and rinsed
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- fresh thyme leaves to garnish
- hot sauce (I prefer Marie Sharp's)
Preparation method
Prep: 10 mins | Cook: 20 mins
1. Cook the rice with your usual preferred method (I like cooking in microwave on 50% power for 15 minutes with a 5 minute rest after: one part rice to two parts water and a T of oil), but substitute the coconut milk (stir before emptying can btw) for part of the water. So instead of 4 cups of water for our two cups of uncooked rice, use the can of coconut milk and however much water in addition you need to equal 4 cups of liquid.
2. While the rice is cooking, heat the oil in a large dutch oven pan, add the onion and peppers and cook gently for 3–4 minutes until softened. Stir in the garlic and cook until tender, using white wine to deglaze the pan as needed.
3. Dump the beans into the dutch oven over the onion mix, stirring to heat. Mix in the thyme. Stir in the rice (mix well), adding salt, pepper, and hot sauce to to taste and scatter over some fresh thyme leaves to garnish.
Rice tastes even better after flavors meld so its perfectly fine to freeze or fridge and warm up later in microwave.
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