Ingredients
- 1 cup dried red beans
- 1 cup dehydrated cooked rice
- 1/2 cup dried ham
- 3 pinches Cajun seasoning
- 3 cups water
Instructions
- This assumes beans that were cooked and then dehydrated. Raw dried red beans will not come back in fifteen minutes however hot the water is — they need hours and a proper pot.
- Crush about a third of the beans before they go in the bag. The starch they let go thickens the pot into something that clings, instead of water sitting around solids.
- Cover the beans, rice and ham with the water and leave it cold for fifteen minutes. Cold water travels into the middle of a bean; boiling water sets the outside first and stops there.
- Top it back up if it has all gone. Before any heat is applied it should look like a loose stew, because very little more will be taken up once it boils.
- Bring it to the boil and take it straight off. Dehydrated rice turns to porridge if it is held there, and the ham goes stringy.
- Leave it covered somewhere warm for ten minutes. This is where the dried ham finally gives, and it is the part everybody skips.
- Stir the Cajun seasoning in at the end rather than the start. It is largely paprika and cayenne, and both go dull and faintly bitter after a long simmer.
- The dry kit keeps a year in a sealed bag, or five vacuum-packed. Bag the seasoning separately — salt pulls moisture out of the air and passes it to whatever is lying next to it.
Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 361 kcal | 102 kcal |
| Protein | 22.1 g | 6.3 g |
| Fat | 3.2 g | 0.9 g |
| saturated | 0.9 g | 0.3 g |
| Carbohydrate | 50.4 g | 14.3 g |
| sugars | 1 g | 0.3 g |
| Fibre | 10.9 g | 3.1 g |
| Sodium | 491 mg | 139 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
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