Friday, June 8, 2007

Beans'n'Rice and Corn Maque Choux

We figured it was time to try another recipe from our latest Jay Solomon book - fast becoming one of my favorite cookbooks now. This is the same book that I made the gratin from a while ago. He uses a West Indian recipe and recommends replacing some of the water for the rice with 1/2 cup of coconut milk to enhance flavors. Both the beans and rice were heavy on thyme (I like it way more than I realized!) and cumin (yum! nothing like fresh-ground cumin to enhance the aroma!). We threw in 1/2 cup of wine from one of the many bottles we brought back from BSM into the beans - good idea! I'm now curious about what kind of flavors wine adds to the food. Using a wine vinegar often imparts tartness accompanied by this aftersweet, but wine seems more complex.

Once the rice was cooked (the coconut milk was a killer idea), we mixed the beans and rice and let them simmer for ~ 10 minutes for the flavors to blend - and they did, quite happily!

Corn Maque Choux - Ok, I'm still trying to figure out how to pronounce this, but I'll eat it any day:
1 can corn (couldn't find fresh corn at MM that day)
1/2 bell pepper - chopped
1/2 sweet vidalia onion - chopped
1 tomato - chopped
1 tsp butter
4-5 garlic cloves - minced

Saute onions and garlic in butter till brown
Drain the water from the corn and keep aside
Throw in bell pepper, corn and tomatoes - let this cook for ~ 15 minutes
Add some of the drained water and let it simmer for 5 minutes
Add salt, pepper and a (big) dash of hot sauce
(I might try this with minced jalapenos next time around)

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