“If any single meal can make the claim of being Belize’s national dish it is without doubt rice and beans. When these two humble ingredients are combined in the proper proportion and cooked with coconut milk, onion and spices, the resulting taste is a joy to even the most fickle of palates. Add a few pieces of tender stewed chicken, rich gravy and a healthy dollop of potato salad, and you have the closest thing to gastronomic heaven.” – Brukdown Magazine In Search Of Rice And Beans.
It’s a cultural smorgasbord! It’s as varied and rich as the several cultures that together make up Belize cuisine. Belizean food can be as peppery and fiery as the heat of the tropical sun, or as cool and refreshing as the crystal clear Caribbean waters that wash the Belize shores.
If one name in Belize is synonymous with beans it is Mee-gan’s. On weekend nights until three or perhaps four a.m. Meighan’s is where the action is. Perched behind his cart at the corner of Church and Albert Street the man is an institution. He has served more beans to more people than perhaps any restauranteur in the business. It is difficult to compare the quality of his fare to others due to the circumstances under which they are consumed, but there’s no doubting their popularity; a typical night will find the most down-and-out party-goes sharing an imaginary table with a government minister. Both will go home with a satisfied belly.
Or it can be as light and bright as the hundreds of birds that sing in our rainforests, or as savory and earthy as the dozens of wildlife that roam her acres of primary forest (many of them now protected species, so no eating of off-season game meat and the Hawksbill turtle is always a no-no for turtle soup or any menu item!).
With the addition of immigrants from India, mainland China, Nigeria and neighbouring Central American countries over the years, Belizean cuisine also now has an added international flavour including plenty street and fast food.
And, particularly with the gastronomic rise in tourism in the past five years, European cuisine, as well as American favourites, has become as readily available as the stalwart Kriol (Creole) rice-and-beans, Latino chimole, Mayan caldo, Garifuna hudut or East Indian curried favourites – all dishes which, incidentally, can today be considered pan-Belizean. Are you beginning to get hungry? Well read on and feast on the following Belizean favourites. First up, every Belizean’s favorite!
Belize Rice and Beans Recipe
Let’s start with the most Belizean of all dishes: rice-and-beans, the staple of Belize Cuisine. Although originally considered primarily a Creole dish, today it’s eaten daily by all and is simply called Belizean rice and beans. While, of course, nobody can make rice-and-beans as delicious as the grandmother of the first Belizean you ever talk to, the following is pretty much a recipe for a successful ‘beans’ as it is commonly called by weekend partygoers when they stop to purchase a plate late night in downtown Belize City from a variety of street-side sellers. Rice and Beans is accompanied by a variety of meats, primarily Belizean Stewed Chicken.
The most famous of these, Meighan beans, was immortalized on celluloid by a local TV station which documented his method for making delicious and gargantuan amounts of rice-and-beans, accompanied by stewed meat (usually beef or chicken) with gravy, potato salad and plantain. Plantain, incidentally, has been described by some visiting palates as the local cranberry sauce. So, here goes. Recipe for Belizean rice-and-beans derived from the original Meighans Beans recipe:
INGREDIENTS
1 lb. Red Kidney Beans 2 plugs Garlic (crushed)
1 tsp. Salt
1 cup coconut Milk (either squeezed from grated coconut or bought prepared, canned, or made from powered variety)
½ tsp. Black pepper
½ tsp. Thyme
2 lbs. cleaned Rice
1 medium Onion (sliced)
6-8 cups of water
(optional) 1 small pigtail or salt beef or pieces of bacon
METHOD
1. Wash the beans, then soak beans for 4 hours, using the 6-8 cups of water. If you are using distilled water, then soaked beans only needs 2 hours to soften.
2. Boil beans until tender, with the garlic, onion and pig’s tail/or salted beef or bacon pieces. Note: pre-wash the pigtail or salt beef and cut off excess fat. You can use a pressure cooker to cut down on the time.
3. Season beans with black pepper, thyme and salt. Note: You may opt not to add the salt if you used salt beef or pigtail above.
4. Add coconut milk. Stir and then let boil.
5. Add rice to seasoned beans. Stir, then cover. Cook on low heat until the water is absorbed and rice is tender. If necessary, add more water gradually until rice is tender. Note: Usually, one cup of rice absorbs two cups of water, although rice grains can vary in the amount of water they absorb. To warm up leftover rice-and-beans, you can sprinkle with water to re-moisten.
Belize Rice and Beans, with its several accompaniments, can be found on most restaurants’ menus. A variation is rice-and-peas (made with black-eyed peas instead of with red kidney beans). And a sister dish, but definitely different, is beans-and-rice, which is the stewed beans served with white rice (not cooked together like its sister dish) and also served with either potato salad or cole slaw, plantain, and your choice of meat or fish. You might also want to check out our related Belize Tilapia Fried Fish Recipe Page.
One of its distinctive ingredients, coconut milk, is also a main ingredient in several other Belizean dishes. One of these is seré, which is a delectable dish, usually made with fish, swimming in a seasoned coconut milk sauce laced with okra and ground foods like cassava and cocoa. The sere is eaten with grated green plantain or often with white rice. Article By Sylvana Udz (Woods)
Miss Una’s Belizean Rice And Beans Recipe
Here is one of the more coveted, traditional, old school, home-made Belizean Rice and Beans Recipe. This recipe was featured in Brukdown Magazine 1977 as earning the maximum 4 Stars Rating. This recipe eschews modern kitchen equipment such as slow cookers or pressure cookers. It calls for rain water, and coconut milk made from scratch. It is the same way our ancestors did their Belizean Rice and Beans.
The rating system awards a maximum of four stars for a ” perfect” meal. In our case we arbitrarily gave this rating to the hypothetical “home made” rice and beans, “the kind that just melts in your mouth, where the rice and beans unite with the coconut to form an inseparably delicious whole, the kind of rice and beans that can stand on its own, without meat, without gravy, without pepper. . .and still send you back to the pot for more.
1 cup red kidney beans
3 cups rice
3 cups coconut milk
1 chopped onion
Pinch of black pepper
Salt to taste
Soak the beans overnight in rainwater.
Boil until tender (add water as necessary).
Grate coconut and mix with 3 cups rainwater.
Squeeze to yield coconut milk.
Wash rice and add to cooked beans (now dry).
Add coconut milk until rice and beans are covered.
Add salt, pepper and chopped onion.
Cover and bring to a boil.
Let simmer 1/2 hour, adding the remaining coconut milk
until rice is tender. Stir and serve.
Related Page: Belize Cuisine Seafood Recipes