A few weeks ago I attempted to make this fairly simple looking recipe, basically just rice cooked in coconut milk and a bay leaf, with some beans added toward the end. It seemed like it would make a good accompaniment to the Caribbean jerk chicken I was making. While I’ve made rice plenty of times before with no problems, when I tried to make this the rice just turned into a clump of crunchy, under cooked rice. No matter how much extra water I added, or additional cooking time, the rice never cooked fully and I eventually just gave up on it. What did I do wrong here?
As I second question, could I make it in an Instant Pot, which has become my go-to method for cooking rice? Would the recipe need any modifications?
Most likely the coconut milk had been sweetened with sugar. For reasons I don’t understand, oats and rice stop absorbing liquid if there is sugar dissolved in it.
My experience is different. I often make a coconut milk rice pudding with sugar, and the rice cooks fine.
Usually when rice fails to absorb liquid, in my experience it’s because I have my simmer temperature just a tad too low. Rice seems to be particular about that.
As an aside, I often eat this rice dish, but in the Caribbean I’ve always seen it on the menu as Rice & Peas (not Rice & Beans). On some islands (particularly Jamiaca) it is traditionally served on Sundays. In the US a similar dish served in the south is Hoppin John.
I’m not sure what went wrong but if you’d like a tried and true recipe for Instant Pot coconut rice I recommend this one. I usually double it to feed the family. The key to this recipe is to make sure you use a really good quality coconut milk.
As far as adapting the recipe to add the beans, I’d try adding the beans right at the start. I’ve seen recipes that add canned beans and let them go 20 to 25 minutes so I’m betting that the 5 minutes at pressure would be fine.
My guess would be use less coconut milk if you’re going to do it in an Instant Pot. My liquid:rice ratio for stovetop cooking is about 1.5:1 to 1.75:1. For Instant Pot, it’s between 1:1 and 1.25:1.
I found this out a few years ago, thinking adding soy sauce to my rice would be a good idea when was cooking. But it would never cook in the rice cooker when soy sauce was added.
The problem I see with the recipe linked in the OP is that it assumes you can substitute a long grain rice for a short grain rice without changing the ratio of liquid to rice volume. Short grain rice generally works best with a one-to-one ratio (ie one cup dry rice, one cup water). For long grain rice, the first cup of rice should have 2 cups of water, and after that use 1.5 cups of water per cup of dry dry rice.
Wildabeast, did you by any chance use long-grain rice without upping the liquid?
ETA: I see the recipe calls for 3 cups liquid and 1.5 cups rice. That seems like too much for short-grain and not quite enough for long grain. Hmmm.
Missed the edit window - my math skills are deteriorating. Three cups lquid should be okay for long grain rice and quite possibly too soupy for short grain.