🇯🇲 Jamaica · a Saturday soup
Jamaican red peas soup
A Jamaican soup of red kidney beans (called red peas) simmered with salted pig tail or salted beef, root vegetables and thyme, finished with coconut milk and flour dumplings called spinners.
Origin and history
Jamaica's tourist board says Saturdays are traditionally for eating soup, and that roadside stops offer hearty red peas or pumpkin soups with meats, dumplings and roots. The Jamaica Observer describes street vendors in Spanish Town selling red peas soup by the cup. The writer of a Toronto Caribbean Newspaper recipe says, without citing a source, that enslaved people made weekend soups of boiled meat and whatever provisions they could get, and that this is why hearty soups are popular across the Caribbean.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 2 h
- Hands-on
- 40 min
Ingredients
- 225 g1/2 lb (about 1 1/4 cups) dried red kidney beans (red peas), soaked overnight, drained
- 340 g3/4 lb salted pig tail, cut in pieces; optional (salt beef can replace it)
- 225 g1/2 lb stewing beef, cut in pieces
- white vinegar and water, to rinse the meats
- 225 g1/2 lb yam, peeled, diced
- 225 g1/2 lb sweet potato, peeled, diced
- 115 g1/4 lb pumpkin (calabaza), peeled, diced
- 2 stalks scallion (escallion)
- 1 sprig fresh thyme
- 6-8 pimento (allspice) berries, whole
- 1 green Scotch bonnet pepper, left whole, not cut
- 3 cloves garlic, smashed
- 400 ml1 can (13.5 fl oz) coconut milk
- 125 g1 cup plain flour, for the spinners
- 30 g1/4 cup cornmeal, for the spinners
- salt and black pepper, to taste
Method
-
1. Rinse the pig tail and the beef with vinegar and water. Boil the pig tail for a few minutes in a separate pot and discard the water, to draw out the excess salt.
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2. Put the soaked beans, the pig tail and the beef in a large pot with about 2 liters (8 cups) of water. Simmer, adding water when it gets low and stirring now and then, until the beans and the meat are nearly tender, about 1 1/2 hours.
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3. Add the yam, sweet potato, pumpkin, scallions, thyme, pimento, whole Scotch bonnet and garlic, with a little more water if needed.
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4. Mix the flour and cornmeal with a pinch of salt and just enough water for a firm dough. Roll small pieces between your palms into thin, finger-length spinners.
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5. Stir in the coconut milk, drop in the spinners and season with salt and pepper, stirring often so nothing sticks.
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6. Lower the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, until the spinners are cooked through and the root vegetables are soft. Lift out the whole pepper and serve in bowls.
Notes
- Red peas in Jamaica means red kidney beans. Cooked down thick, with less liquid, the same beans become stew peas, which Jamaicans eat over white rice; this recipe is the thinner soup eaten from a bowl or cup.
- Salted pig tail is very salty: rinse it and boil it briefly first (one Jamaican cook soaks it overnight instead) and taste before adding salt.
- Thickening: one Jamaican Gleaner cook blends about three cooking spoons of the cooked peas with some broth and returns it to the pot. Other Gleaner cooks pressure-cook the peas and meat first, and one makes the coconut milk from a grated coconut.
- Leave the Scotch bonnet whole so it gives flavour, not much fire; take it out before serving.
- Street versions vary: a Spanish Town vendor sells red peas soup with cow skin and says it has no pig tail. Vegetarian versions use the peas, vegetables and coconut milk alone.
- Make ahead: the soup thickens and improves overnight; thin with hot water when reheating.
- Quantities follow the Toronto Caribbean Newspaper recipe, the only one read that gives measures; the Gleaner cooks give none.
Adapted from Toronto Caribbean Newspaper, Jamaican style red peas soup soothes the soul and The Gleaner (Jamaica), cooks' stew peas recipes, 17 February 2011.
At the festivals
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