Jamaican Mild Red Beans and Rice

Jamaican Entree

MILD RED BEANS AND RICE

INGREDIENTS

1½ tablespoons olive oil
1 white onion
3 garlic cloves
2 stalks green onion
3 cups cooked brown rice
2 15-ounce cans small red beans
1 15-ounce can unsweetened coconut milk
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon allspice
½ teaspoon thyme
½ teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon pepper

PREPARATION

Cook rice as directed on package.

Drain cans of red beans. Mince white onion, garlic cloves, and green onion. Heat oil in pot. Add white onion, garlic, and green onion. Cook on medium-low heat until white onion is soft and is starting to turn golden.

Add rice, beans, coconut milk, brown sugar, allspice, thyme, salt, and pepper. Cook for about 15 minutes on medium-low heat until rice absorbs most of the coconut milk. The rice and beans should be moist.

This dish can be made as spicy as you want. Jamaicans often add Scotch bonnet pepper which is one of the hottest peppers in the world. This spice is also hard to find.

TIDBITS

1) Jamaicans like to cook with allspice.

2) Swedes like to cook with allspice.

3) The Mayans of Mexico built vast stone temples and cities. They were superb ancient astronomers.

4) The Mayans also loved allspice.

5) My grandmother always cooked with allspice.

6) Eva, a Swedish friend of my mother, said allspice was, “nature’s spice.”

7) Where did this tidbit go?

8) The evidence has amounted to such a point that we must conclude that ancient mariners carried themselves and allspice all over Europe and North America.

9) But in which direction? America to Europe or vice versa?

10) There is no evidence that ancient Mayans or Jamaicans ever crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

11) However, there is considerable evidence through sagas and the unearthed remains of a Viking village in L’Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland that Vikings visited and settled the New World.

12) Thus, we must conclude that the Caribbean and the eastern part of North America were not only discovered and populated by ancient Swedes, but were culinarily enhanced as well.

13) The discoverer of America was Leif Ericson.

14) My grandmother’s name was Erickson.

15) My ancestors discovered America.

16) My it’s been a long time in the hot kitchen.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.