Stephen & Evie Colbert’s red rice recipe, a dish both jammy and tangy

STEPHEN: My love of red rice started at Stiles Point Elementary School on James Island, South Carolina. The cafeteria served it just about every day, and that was fine with me. I’ve had a lot since then, but this comes closest to the deep savory sweetness that those lunch ladies somehow whipped up in barrel-size batches. I came up with this version after food writer Alison Roman and I made her caramelized shallot pasta sauce on “The Late Show.” There was something about the aroma, both jammy and tangy, that told me it would make a killer rice. I love being right.

EVIE: Red rice is a classic Southern receipt, (Eds: Evie is partial to using “receipt” in place of “recipe”) and another example of the enormous influence of West African culture on Lowcountry cuisine. I have been making the version from the Charleston Receipts Cookbook for decades. But that calls for bacon and bacon grease, and I don’t mess with that anymore. Thankfully, Stephen substituted smoked salt and anchovies, and ta-da! Even better than the original!

This recipe is from their new cookbook, “Does This Taste Funny?: Recipes Our Family Loves.”

Red Rice

Makes about 6 cups or 8 servings

Ingredients:

1⁄4 cup olive oil
6 medium shallots, finely chopped (about 1 cup)
2 teaspoons smoked salt, such as Bulls Bay (see Notes), or as needed
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
One 2-ounce tin anchovies, drained
One 4.5-ounce tube double-concentrated tomato paste or 1⁄2 cup regular tomato paste
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 cups Charleston Gold aromatic rice or other long-grain rice
3 cups water (see Notes)
A few tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Directions:

Heat the olive oil in a heavy 3- to 4-quart saucepan or a Dutch oven over medium-low heat. Add the shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 8 minutes. Season with the smoked salt and pepper. Stir the anchovies into the shallots and keep stirring until they melt away. Add the tomato paste and red pepper flakes and cook until the paste turns a nice jammy red, about 4 minutes.

Stir in the rice and water and season with more salt. (Dip a finger in to make sure it’s seasoned to your liking.) Heat the water to a boil, give the rice a big stir, and reduce the heat to a very low simmer. Cover the pan and cook, undisturbed, for 12 minutes.

Cut off the heat and leave the cover on for an additional 8 minutes. Then (and only then!) lift the lid and fluff with a fork.

Sprinkle the parsley over the top and serve.

NOTES:

- Bulls Bay smoked salt starts out as sea salt harvested from the waters of Bulls Bay on the South Carolina coast. Oak-smoking gives the salt its particular hearty flavor. Bulls Bay salt can be found online.

- Different types of rice may need different amounts of water. Use the cooking instructions on the package of rice as a guide. Because the tomato/shallot jam is semi-liquid, you may find that you want to reduce the amount of water

“From Does This Taste Funny?: Recipes Our Family Loves” by Stephen Colbert and Evie McGee Colbert. Copyright (c) 2024 by the authors and reprinted with permission of Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.

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