When Oddsocks Revival impromptly returned from the Enniscorthy Strawberry Festival, what was originally intended to be a simple pigeon-peas and rice dinner (which would have been extremely boring and bland), became delicious shrimps in a coconut sauce with pigeon-peas and rice. If the boys had returned to only rice and beans my reputation would have been fleeting and so, Teresa and I headed out late that evening in the still ridiculous heat to find some fresh shrimp and plenty of limes for the eagerly anticipated mojitos.
Two hours and zero mojitos later we were still beheading, tailing and deveining our kilo of shrimp, a less than pleasant job poor T had not signed up for. I for the first time understood why people just buy them already prepared and swore never to buy shrimp whole again. This was until I learned the absolute joy of the stock made from simmering the shells. Turns out there is more flavor in one shell than in the flesh of a million shrimp (a slight exaggeration maybe) so if you are going to the trouble of buying them whole, for Gods sake make a stock. I literally could not believe how delicious it was and mixed with coconut milk - I could have, and truth be told did, eat it with a spoon.
Apologies for the lack of photos and the hilarity of the photos that were taken. (I got a little carried away with being masterchefy, hence the ridiculous tower of rice, which took no more than two attempts!) I blame the booze for my temporary insanity.
Pigeon-peas and Rice (or Black-eyed Beans and Rice)
The national dish of Anguilla is pigeon peas and rice - I must stress that this is pigeon-dash-peas and rice and not pigeon and peas and rice! I however couldn’t get my hands on any pigeon-peas but had read that you can substitute them with black-eyed peas. When overcome with a billion types of peas and beans in the ethnic food store, I of course, mistook black-eyed peas for black-eyed beans and so, in reality the dish below is black-eyed beans and rice and not pigeon-peas and rice - my mistake on many accounts. This is not the most exciting dish. Rice and beans is after all just rice and beans.
Serves 8
1 onion, chopped
3 rashers of bacon, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
400g black eyed beans, presoaked for an hour (obviously use pigeon peas if you can)
400g rice
4 or 5 spring onions, sliced
a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme
bunch of parsley, chopped
salt and pepper
olive oil
Throw away the water that the beans were soaked in and simmer until the beans are tender. Roughly forty minutes or so but you just have to keep tasting them. I also skimmed off the scum.
Cook the rice as you would normally.
Fry the onion, garlic and bacon in a little oil for about ten minutes. Then throw in the cooked rice and cooked beans, cumin, spring onions, the leaves of the sprigs of thyme, parsley and season with salt and pepper and mix the whole shebang together. And there you have it – beans and rice.
Coconut Shrimp
This is one for the shellfish lovers. It took more effort to deshell the shrimps than I would have like, but if you have the patience and aren’t too squeamish about brains and intestines etc. and love seafood this is worth giving a go. It is intensely shellfishy even before you add the actual shrimps. Beware: this will not work if you don’t make your own stock so if you are considering using prepared frozen prawns – don’t. If I were doing this again I would just serve it with plain rice and a simple salad. Yum!
Serves 6
I kg of shrimp, whole
juice of 1 lime
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, cubed
2 onions, thinly sliced
½ can of chopped tomatoes
1 and ½ cans of unsweetened coconut milk
1 tsp cornflour
a few spring onions, sliced
some chopped parsley
Peel and devein your shrimp. Put the shrimp in one bowl squeeze of the juice of a lime. Set aside. Put the shells in a saucepan, cover with about four cups of water and simmer for 20 minutes. The shells go an illluminous pink colour and so does the water. It starts smelling seriously seafoody. Sieve the stock and discard the shells.
Fry up the peppers, onion and garlic until soft. Next simply throw in the coconut milk, tinned tomatoes, about half the shrimp stock (or as much as you like really) and stir in the cornflour. Leave to simmer for about ten minutes or until you get the desired consistency which I would describe as like a seafood chowder. Next add the shrimp and just wait until they have turned pinky – literally 2 minutes. Garnish with the spring onions and parsley ( I forgot this for the photos) and serve with a bottle of seriously hot sauce!
