Seafood Black Mushroom Rice (Diri ak Djon Djon)

Seafood Black Mushroom Rice

If you love a good one-pot rice dish, this Seafood Black Mushroom Rice is one you need to add to the rotation. It’s savory, deeply seasoned, loaded with seafood, and gets that beautiful dark color and earthy flavor from black mushrooms.

Black mushroom rice is already one of those dishes that doesn’t need much convincing, but adding seafood takes it to another level. The rice soaks up all of that flavor from the mushrooms, aromatics, herbs, and seafood, so every spoonful has something going on.

And you already know how I feel about rice around here — it should NEVER be an afterthought.

This is the kind of dish I’d put in the middle of the table with a simple salad, some avocado on the side, and call dinner DONE.

What are Black Mushrooms (Djon Djon)?

Black mushrooms are dried mushrooms that have a deep, earthy flavor and release a beautifully dark liquid once they’ve been soaked.

And please, do not throw that soaking liquid away!

That mushroom water is where so much of the flavor and color for this rice comes from. Once the mushrooms soften, I chop them up and use both the mushrooms and that flavorful liquid to cook the rice.

That’s what gives this dish its signature dark color.

The Seafood

One of the things I love about this recipe is that you can make the seafood combination your own.

I like using a mixture such as:

• Shrimp
• Blue Crab
• Rock Crab

You can use all of them or keep it simple with just shrimp. The most important thing is not overcooking the seafood.

Seafood cooks quickly, so I like building all the flavor into the rice first and adding the seafood toward the end. Nobody wants beautiful shrimp that have been cooking for 35 minutes!

Seafood Black Mushroom Rice

Serves: 6

Prep: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 30-45 minutes

• 2 cups of dried djon djon
• 4 1/2 cups of water
• Shells from peeled shrimp
• 1 small onion, cut into four
• 1 tbsp of oil 
• 1 large spoonful of Epis
• 1 can of lima beans or green peas, strained
• 1/2 chicken bouillon cube
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 small bushel of parsley
• 1 scotch bonnet pepper poked with whole cloves
• 2 1/2 cups of parboiled basmati rice
• 0.5 lb tiger shrimp
• 0.5 lb blue crab
• 1 lb wild shrimp
• 1 lb rock crab
• Juice of half lemon

Directions

Prep your seafood first by cleaning with lime and water. Rinse and pat dry. Divide the shrimp, rock crab, and blue crab into 3 different bowls. Remove the shell from the shrimp and set aside. Season the shrimp with 1 spoonful of epis, 1 tsp of seafood seasoning, 1/2 tsp all purpose seasoning. Cook the shrimp in 2 tbsp of olive oil for 7-10 minutes. When the shrimp is almost cooked, squeeze the juice of half of a lemon over the shrimp and set aside.
Season the crab with 1-2 spoonfuls of epis and 1 tsp of seafood seasoning. Set aside. Feel free to add another seasoning if you prefer.

To prepare the seafood stock:

Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a pan, add 1 spoonful of epis and sauté for 1 minute. Add shells from peeled shrimp along with onion and continue to sauté for 1 minute. Add water and dried djon djon. Simmer for 10-15 minutes and strain.

-Strain the water from the lima beans or green peas and add to the pot along with chicken bouillon cube and sauté for 30 seconds.

-Next, add rinsed rice and the djon djon broth along with parsley, salt, and scotch bonnet pepper poked with whole cloves. Add the crab. Cover and cook for 25 minutes or until water has evaporated and stir. Add the shrimp when the rice has cooked. Enjoy!