food to glow

Black eye peas (or beans, as they are called in the UK) are a traditional New Year’s Day meal in the southern states of the US. Eating them is supposed to bring luck and money your way. I’m not sure about that, but eating black eye peas is certainly a healthy way to start the year, and they are a mild-tasting pea that takes on so many flavours. I have a couple of black eye pea recipes, with more information about US customs at this time of year – Hoppin’ John for New Year’s Day Luck, Southern Style, and Groundnut and Black Eye Pea Stew (mega-favourite of ours).

The punchy stir-in sauce for this easy recipe can be made in a blender or food processor. Make more if you like and keep in the fridge to use it as a jerk sauce for other things you fancy spicing up. It will keep for one week – or pop it in the freezer.

For a “mixed palate” crowd, make the stew without the sauce and serve up sauce-less stew before adding the sauce to the remainder, maybe adding a splash of the sauce to the former. But this easy recipe is more about flavour than heat, and is based on my 2013 recipe, How To Make Jerk Marinade + Jerk Paneer Vegetable Kebabs with Pineapple-Mango Salsa. xx

Jerk Sauce

2 scotch bonnet peppers, deseeded (use rubber gloves when handling the peppers)

3 cloves of garlic, peeled

Whites from one bunch of spring onions/scallions, roughly chopped

7 dates, stoned

1 thumb of ginger (about 10g)

¾ tbsp ground allspice

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground turmeric or 1 heaped tsp raw

½ tsp black pepper

2 rounded tbsp tomato puree

½ tbsp. dried thyme

1 good sprig fresh lemon thyme, leaves stripped (optional)

1-2 tsp (lower sodium) soy sauce, coconut aminos or tamari sauce

Juice from 1 lime, plus the zest

50ml water

The Stew

800ml light vegetable stock or water

1 sweet/bell pepper, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 tin of tomatoes

Double handful of frozen or fresh corn

2 tins of black eye peas/beans, drained

100g (rounded ½ cup) rice

100g (typical bag, ribs removed) chopped kale

Handful of parsley, chopped

1. Add all of the sauce ingredients to your blender or food processor and blitz until completely smooth. It will taste very hot, but remember you are diluting it way down as the stew.

2. Bring the water or stock to the boil and add the sauce (unless adding at the end for a mixed palate crowd), chopped pepper, tomatoes, corn, beans and rice. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the kale and parsley, re-cover and cook for a further five minutes. Taste for seasoning, adjusting as needed (such as a dash of sea salt). The stew is ready when the rice is tender. Serve with cornbread if you like, and some additional hot sauce, chopped tomatoes, parsley, olive oil and slices of lime.