Fricasseed Chicken with Rice and Peas

LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY – 6    TOTAL COST – £10.30 (with Rice and Peas) £7.30 (with normal rice)  SERVES – 4

Fricasseed Chicken with Rice and Peas

This delicious Jamaican dish is a moderately complicated one, so if you haven’t cooked anything like it before then perhaps use a packet of your usual rice rather than the Rice and Peas. This dish is extra spicy, and when made properly the chicken is perfectly tender and almost falls off the bone, so any chicken lovers dream meal. Contrary to what you may think, Rice and Peas does not actually contain any peas – peas is a Jamaican term for kidney beans. Rice and Peas is a major part of the Jamaican national cuisine and is an important part of Sunday lunch and festive meals.

My boyfriend is Jamaican and gave me the recipe for this tasty dish.

For the Fricasseed Chicken:

Around 1 kg of Chicken niblets

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp black pepper

1 Scotch bonnet pepper, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

3 spring onions, chopped

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 onion, chopped

500ml chicken stock or just water

1 tsp hot pepper sauce

1 and a half tbsp tomato ketchup

2 potatoes, peeled and chopped

4 carrots, peeled and chopped

Ingredients to make the Fricasseed Chicken

For the Rice and Peas:

250g fresh red kidney beans

One tin of coconut milk

1.5 litres of water

250g bacon – chopped

1 sprig thyme

1 scotch bonnet

1 clove garlic – chopped finely

500g rice

salt and pepper

Lets get started on the chicken first:

• First you will need to mix the salt, sugar, peppers, garlic, spring onion and chicken together with your fingers in a large bowl. This then needs to marinade, the longer for the better the flavour will be. If you can, leave it in the fridge over night or if you’re in more of a hurry then leave for two hours or even just half an hour.

The chicken in its marinade

• When you are ready to cook you will need to extract the chicken from the marinade and use a knife or your fingers to scrape off the bits of peppers/garlic/spring onion and keep to one side in the bowl to use later. Then heat the oil in a large wok on a medium heat and brown the chicken.

The chicken in the process of being browned

• Remove the chicken and keep to one side on a plate, then add the onion to the wok and saute.
• You will then need to add the chicken, the stock, the marinade bits you kept earlier, the hot pepper sauce, and the ketchup. Bring to the boil and cook for 15 minutes.
• Then add the carrots and potatoes and simmer for about 15 minutes until the vegetables are tender.

Add the carrots and potatoes to the mixture

• Serve making sure you pour some of the pan juice over too.

Now the Rice and Peas:

• Fry the bacon then transfer to a large pot and add the coconut milk and the kidney beans.
• Bring to the boil then turn down the heat and cook for around an hour until the kidney beans are tender. To test, after 40 minutes of cooking remove one bean from the pan and cut in half with a knife, if it does not cut easily then cook for longer.
• Add the thyme, hot pepper, garlic, and a dash of salt and pepper, stir then simmer for 5 minutes.
• Now add the rice. The liquid should sit around 1 inch above the rice, if not then add more water.
• Bring to the boil then turn down the heat again and cook for around 15 minutes until the rice has absorbed the liquid and the rice is cooked.