Jamaican Jerk Chicken

Hello All,

Well it has been four years and this recipe was always planned to be next and now here it is!  Just four years late.... Oh well!  This recipe has been a big hit with friends and family, so hopefully it was worth the four year wait.

...

As promised I was working on a Jamaican jerk recipe to go with the Jamaican rice and peas recipe.  Life got a little busy but I am back!  Jerk chicken is a staple of Jamaican cuisine.  Jerk chicken is spicy, with most of the heat coming from allspice, black pepper, and Scotch bonnet peppers.  Jerk chicken is traditionally slow roasted in fire pits in the ground.  I cooked this batch of jerk chicken in the oven, because I was in between barbecues  I will include what I do when I use the Traeger, so that you all get an even smokier flavor for your jerk chicken!

Jerk cooking is influenced by many different cultures.  The style originated with the native Taino and Arawak people of Jamaica.  The work "jerk" comes from the Incan borrowed Spanish word charqui, which means dried strips of meat.  This is also where the English work jerky comes from.  In the 1700s escaped former slaves, called the Maroons.  Many of the Maroons lived and intermarried with the Native Jamaicans. They used this style of cooking to preserve wild boar on other meats, when living in the mountains and hiding from their captors.  Overtime the style of cooking incorporated other types of meat and became less drying meat to preserve it and more about getting nice, slow cooked, juicy meat!  In Jamaica green pimento wood is used to get the smoky flavor.

Josh's Jamaican Jerk Chicken

Ingredients (Serves around 4-6):

• About 3 lbs of bone in chicken meat.  I did 12 drumsticks.
• 1/2 onion, preferably white
• 3 green onion
• 2-3 scotch bonnet peppers (or habanero)
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 lime
• 2 tablespoon of oil (your choice.  I use olive)
• 1 tablespoon of vinegar
• 3 tablespoon of soy sauce
• juice from half an orange
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of grated ginger
• 4 tablespoons of dried thyme
• 1 tablespoon of ground allspice
• 1 tablespoon of brown sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon of salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

Veggies that go into the marinade

Directions:

1. Roughly chop up vegetables and put into the blender.  There is nothing special about chopping the vegetables, just make sure that your blender can handle the size of the pieces.
2.  Blend ingredients until smooth.  The consistency should be relatively smooth but doesn't have to be liquid smooth, just no rough chunks. 
    
3. Poke the chicken with a fork.  This is known as "jerking" the chicken.
4. Marinate chicken for 2 to 24 hours.   Bag up the chicken. Put in fridge. When you go more than 24 hours when marinating chicken starts to break down and gets soft.
   
5. Take chicken out of fridge and set on the counter for an hour. 
   
6. Smoke for 15 to 30 min if using a wood pellet bbq or smoker.  Skip this if you are using the oven.  
7. Set oven or bbq at 300 to 350 degrees.  This is your choice.  I like 300 degrees.  Jerk chicken is traditionally cooked low and slow, but if you want to raise the temp to 350 degrees, that would work as well too. If its the weekend and you have all day, feel free to go even lower!. I usually do the chicken on the Traeger, but the day I took these pictures I did it in the oven.  A wood pellet or charcoal bbq will always have a better flavor than the oven when it comes to chicken, but I was in between barbeques, the time I took the pictures, so I had to use the oven. 
8. Cook chicken to 165 degrees.  This will take about 80 to 90 minutes at 300 degrees and around 60 minutes at 350 degrees. I turn the chicken over halfway through and brush on a little extra marinade.
   
9. Let chicken rest for 5-10 minutes and then eat!  Always let meat rest, it helps keep the juices in.

   

   Jerk Chicken with my Rice and Peas, and a Caribbean slaw

Sources:

https://kitchenproject.com/history/JerkChicken/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/jerk-chicken

http://www.jjcjerk.com/history-of-jerk

http://www.jerkhill.com/history.htm

Jamaican Rice and Peas (Beans)

Hello All,

Today we are going to a recipe that is relatively new to me, but I really love it and wish I had this dish a lot time ago!  Rice and beans, known as "peas" in the Caribbean, are a staple of many Caribbean and Central American countries' cuisines.  It is a savory dish that is served as a side in many meals, including breakfast.  Rice and peas is commonly served with meat, but at home you can just as easily eat them with vegetables or some other type of main course.  I actually love these as a meal by themselves too.  In Jamaica,commonly goes with jerk chicken, a dish that I will post in the coming weeks.

I was inspired to take on Jamaican rice and peas after watching and episode of Gordon Ramsey's "Nightmare Kitchen".  In the episode he is helping a Jamaican restaurant in L.A. and restaurant's rice and peas are dry and flavorless, but looked like they could be delicious!.  The rice looked very similar to the red bean rice eaten in Korea and Japan, which I love, so I decided I need to try out Jamaican rice and peas.  After looking at a different recipes and trying out a few batches, I created a recipe that I really enjoy.  While this dish is usually made with kidney beans, I am not the biggest fan of them, and I instead put black beans in the dish.  You can put in dish what ever kind of beans you like and are a fan of.  I and a very big fan of this dish and I hope you are too!  

Josh's Jamaican Rice and Peas

Ingredients (makes about 5 cups):

• 2 cups of long grain rice
• 1 15 oz can of black beans (or any beans of your choice)
• 1 19 oz can of coconut milk
• 1/2 a large onion, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 scotch bonnet or habanero pepper
• 2 teaspoons of ground allspice
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 2 teaspoons of dried thyme leave

Directions: 

1. Pour coconut milk and juice from canned beans into a liquid measuring glass.  Top off with water so combined liquid is a total of 3 1/2 cups.  Pour into pot.  The rice will be cooked in a mixture that is pretty rich, giving the rice good flavor.

   

   coconut milk, bean juice, and water mix

2. Put rest of can of beans, chopped onion, minced garlic, and whole scotch bonnet/habanero into liquid mixture.  I have had trouble finding scotch bonnet peppers, but habanero are a good alternative.  They are members of the same species, just different varieties, which gives them a little bit of a different taste.  You can chop up the pepper if you want but it is extremely spicy.  Adding it whole gives the rice a subtle kick and flavor.  If you do chop up the pepper put plastic over your hands.  If you don't every time you touch your face, it will burn.
3. Add 2 teaspoons of allspice, 2 teaspoons of salt and 2 teaspoons of dried thyme leaves to pot.  Bring to boil on high.  Be sure to stir when bringing to a boil.  You don't want the bottom to burn and you want to make sure that the ingredients are mixed.  

   

   All of the ingredients and spices getting ready to boil

4. Add 2 cups of washed and rinsed long grain rice.  Bring back to boil.  The rice will take just a few seconds to bring back to a full boil.
5. Once at boil turn stove on low and simmer for 25 minutes.  This may need 30 min but for me it was 25.  Just take a look at 25 min and if the rice looks to wet, then let cook for 5 more minutes.
6. Let rice rest off the element for 10 minutes and then fluff with a fork.  It is always good to let rice sit for a little bit.  It allows the moisture to redistribute from the bottom of the pan to the top, making all the rice fluffy!  Once you fluff the rice you can get rid of the pepper.

   

   Rested and fluffed rice.

7. Plate up and eat!  Eat with as a side with meat or vegetables.  After this recipe I just ate it by itself.  Basically eat it how ever you please.

   

   Yum!

I hope you enjoy this rice dish.  In the coming weeks I will include a Jamaican jerk chicken recipe to accompany the rice.  I was trying to have the jerk chicken recipe ready to go for next week but unfortunately I need to make more tweaks to my jerk sauce.  There has been many trial and error batches and a lot of chicken for lunch and dinner the past two weeks.  haha.  Happy eating!

Josh