Jamaican recipe
How to make Jerk chicken and pork
The Taíno and the Maroons; now the whole island
Chicken or pork rubbed with a fiery paste of Scotch bonnet peppers, allspice, spring onion, thyme and other spices, then cooked slowly over a smoky fire, traditionally of pimento wood. Jerk is sold at roadside stalls all over the island and eaten with hard dough bread or festival.
Ingredients
- 8 chicken thighs or drumsticks, skin on
- 6 spring onions (scallions), roughly chopped
- 1 to 2 Scotch bonnet peppers, seeds removed (or 1 milder chilli)
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 tablespoon ground allspice
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme or a few sprigs of fresh thyme
- Half a teaspoon ground cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg
- 2 tablespoons soft brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce and the juice of 1 lime
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil and 1 teaspoon salt
Method
- Blend the spring onions, peppers, garlic, spices, sugar, soy sauce, lime juice, oil and salt to a thick paste. Wear gloves or wash your hands very well after handling Scotch bonnets, and keep them away from your eyes.
- Cut two or three slashes in each piece of chicken, rub the paste all over and into the cuts, cover and leave in the fridge for at least 4 hours, or overnight.
- Heat the oven to 200°C. Put the chicken on a rack over a roasting tin and roast for 40 to 45 minutes, turning once, until the skin is dark and crisp and the juices run clear.
- For a smoky taste, finish the chicken on a hot barbecue for a few minutes on each side. Make sure it is cooked right through.
- Rest for 5 minutes and serve with rice and peas, festival or hard dough bread.
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The Taíno smoked meat on a wooden frame they called a barbacoa, the root of the word 'barbecue'. The word 'jerk' is thought to come from charqui, a Spanish word of Quechua origin for dried meat, which also gave English the word 'jerky'.
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