My pelau disaster!

Sigh. I love cooking and I especially love trying new recipes. But it is just the worst when you try to make something and it turns out awful. Such was today.

Pelau is a Trinidadian rice and peas with chicken dish. Basically you put everything into the pot and the rice and peas are supposed to soak up all the seasonings from the chicken. It is delicious if it is done right. My Auntie Beryl was the Queen of Pelau...her rice was always fluffy and her chicken seasonings so yummy that you couldn't resist eating even the bones. I have been trying to make pelau on and off for the past 10 years. Unsuccessfully. I never can get the liquid to rice ratio just right, and my pelau usually ends up looking like goop.

Karen brought me some pigeon peas when she came up from Barbados, and I've been planning all week to make this pelau. I spent a ton of time searching the internet for just the right recipe to make it like Auntie Beryl's, even debating with Daddy whether to use coconut milk or not. See, pelau is one of those dishes where everyone has their own special recipe, and trust me, they are all different. So after all that, it was a huge disappointment to have the whole thing fail. As Megan so bluntly put it after peering into the pot, "Yuck, it looks like doo-doo."

Better go warn Ben to prepare for grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner tonight.