Jamaican Red Peas Soup
Jamaican Red Peas Soup is a classic Jamaican soup that's bursting with a mix of Caribbean herbs, spices and flavour! It's made with red kidney beans and beef to make the most delicious base for the soup and loaded with dumplings, carrots, and hearty ground provision, such as yams and potatoes. This dish can easily be prepared with just vegetables making it a great vegetarian or vegan dish as well!
Servings: 6 servings
Equipment
- 1 Large Stockpot
Ingredients
To Soak Red Kidney Beans
- 2 cups Dried Red Kidney Beans
- 3 cups Water may need an additional cup
- 4 cloves Garlic large, crushed
- 8 Whole Pimento Seeds or whole allspice berries
Jamaican Red Peas Soup
- 12 cups Water divided
- 2 lbs Beef Shank cut into chunks w/ bone or stewing beef, optional
- 1 lb Cured Bone-In Beef salt beef, cut into chunks, optional
- 2 small Potato quartered
- 3 slices Yellow Yam small
- 1 Carrot large, peeled and sliced
- 1/2 med Onion
- 1-2 Scotch Bonnet Pepper whole, optional
- 2 stalks Escallion green onion, crushed
- 3-4 sprigs Fresh Thyme
- 6 Flour Spinners (Dumpling) recipe below
- 1 can Coconut Milk 400ml
- 2 tbsp All Purpose Seasoning or seasoning salt, more or less to taste
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Spinners
- 1 cup All Purpose Flour
- 1/2 cup Water
- 1/4 tsp Salt
Other Optional Ingredients or Substitutes for Above Listed Ingredients
- Corn
- Ground Provision Yams, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, Dasheen, Eddo and Cassava
Instructions
Soak Red Kidney Beans
- Rinse beans and place in a medium sized bowl. Add fresh water, garlic, and pimento seeds (allspice berries). Cover with plastic wrap or a lid and allow to soak for 6 to 8 hours or overnight.
Prepare Cured/Salted Beef if using
- Add water to a large stockpot and bring to a boil. Then add cured/salted beef and boil for about 20 minutes to remove salt and discard water and set aside beef. Repeat if necessary until desired amount of salt has been been boiled out.
Cook Beef & Red Kidney Beans
- In the same large stockpot, bring to rapid boil 10 cups of fresh water. Carefully add the beef shank or stewing beef, cured/salted beef if using and pour in bean mixture (including the water, which is now infused with flavour). Allow to boil for about 45 minutes to an hour or until the beef and beans are mid-tender.
Jamaican Red Peas Soup
- While beef and beans boiling, prepare your other fresh ingredients; potato, carrot, yellow yam, onion, thyme, green onion (escallion), and scotch bonnet pepper; set aside.
- When beef and peas are more on the tender side add the remaining fresh ingredients including the spinners and add an additional two cups of water to ensure all soup ingredients are covered; reduce heat to medium.
- Pour in coconut milk, and season with all purpose seasoning, salt and black pepper. Give a good stir, taste and adjust if necessary; allow to simmer for an additional 15 mins. Remove scotch bonnet pepper and thyme sprigs, serve while hot and enjoy!
Spinners
- In a medium mixing bowl, add flour and salt then gradually add water and use your hand to knead and form the dough for the spinners. Dough should be soft but not sticky and wet. Pinch or cut off 6 to 8 equal sized pieces. Use the palms of your hands to make long thin dumpling style spinners. Set each spinner aside.
Notes
Spinners – you may not need all the water listed to form the dumplings. I needed 1/4 cup + 3 tbsp of water.
Level of Spice – don’t let the scotch bonnet pepper burst, unless you want a spicer soup.
Salted Beef – salted beef altogether should boil for approximately 30 minutes in 10 minute increments adding fresh water everytime to draw out the excess salt from the beef.
Water/Stock Level – always make sure there’s enough water in your pot to cover your ingredients at all times. Enough water to cover the beef and red kidney beans during the cooking process. Enough water to cover all your vegetables and spinners to allow the soup to simmer.
See detailed notes above for additional tips.