Puerto Rican Rice and Beans

A good friend and well-known cookery writer, Alice Wooledge Salmon, gave me this recipe on her return from a trip to Puerto Rico. There, as in Jamaica, rice and peas or rice and beans is a favourite staple, a daily accompaniment to salt cod, fried bananas or plantains, or just a plain fried egg.

If you use annatto seeds, crush them in a little oil in a mortar before combining the mixture with the other ingredients.