Name: Caribbean Coconut Rice
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Caribbean
Ingredients: 300 g long-grain rice; 400 ml coconut milk; 200 ml water; 2 spring onions, sliced; 2 garlic cloves, crushed; 3 sprigs fresh thyme; 1 tsp salt; 1 tbsp vegetable oil

Caribbean Coconut Rice

Long-grain rice cooked in coconut milk with thyme, garlic and spring onions until fragrant, creamy and fluffy.

35 min total Serves 4 servings Easy

How to Cook Caribbean Coconut Rice

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Wash the rice in cold water until it runs nearly clear. Drain well.
Heat the oil in a heavy pan and cook the garlic and spring onions for 1 minute. Add the rice and stir for 1 minute.
Pour in the coconut milk and water, add the thyme and salt, and bring to a boil. Cover tightly, turn the heat to its lowest and cook for 20 minutes.
Leave covered off the heat for 10 minutes. Remove the thyme stalks and fluff with a fork.

What Can Go Wrong

Use a pan with a tight lid; steam escaping makes the rice dry.
If the rice is still firm at the end, add 3 tablespoons of hot water and cover for 5 minutes.
Season well, because coconut mutes salt.

Common Substitutions & Variations

If coconut is a problem, a cooking cream (dairy or plant-based) can stand in for the coconut milk in a sauce; the dish will lose the coconut flavour and taste noticeably different.
Out of spring onions? A small regular onion, finely sliced, or a few chives stirred in at the end both cover the job.
An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.

A Little Background

Why does coconut rice so often turn out gluey or bland? Usually the liquid is wrong. Coconut milk is thick, so rice cooked in it alone is heavy and sticky; thinning it with water gives creamy grains that still separate.

The flavour here is simple and savoury rather than sweet. Garlic, spring onions and fresh thyme go in with the rice, along with plenty of salt, which coconut needs more of than water does. The thyme sprigs are removed at the end.

Wash the rice until the water runs nearly clear, because loose surface starch is what makes it clump. Do not lift the lid once it is simmering; the steam does the cooking. Resting off the heat for 10 minutes lets the grains finish and dry out, and a fork fluffs them without breaking them. Season the finished rice with a little extra salt if it tastes flat, since coconut milk mutes it more than you expect.

On the Table Alongside

Jerk chicken · Curry goat · Fried fish · Stewed beans

Keeping Caribbean Coconut Rice

Keeps in the fridge for 3 days. Reheat with a splash of water.