J is for: Jamaican Jerk Chicken

January has flown by. Seems like just last week, I was telling you about my plan for detox and sharing a recipe for a Whole30 Italian Wedding Soup.

I’m happy to report the detox has gone well! I’ve been working out 5-6 times per week, and mostly eating a clean diet of meats and veggies, leading to a noticeable change on the scale. Minus a small hiccup when my friends Liz & Ben visited and basically hazed me to drink (ok, so it didn’t actually take a ton of convincing), I’ve also managed to stick to “dry January.”

Truth be told, it’s more like “dry first 3 weeks of January.” We have a wedding this weekend, and then off to Jamaica on Sunday to celebrate Justin’s birthday, effectively cutting the detox a few days short.

Speaking of Jamaica… I’ve been dying for my friend Alexis to teach me her jerk chicken recipe, so this seemed like perfect timing!

I met Alexis while working at ESPN. She has a vibrant and infectious personality; it’s impossible not to love this Jamaican girl. She also makes delicious jerk chicken, which is an added bonus! I’m so glad she not only shared her own personal recipe, but also came to New York to teach me in person.

As I was collecting ingredients for our cooking extravaganza, one item on the shopping list was somewhat unfamiliar to me. Scotch bonnet peppers, as Alexis informed me, are literally in everything in Jamaica. Sadly for her, she cannot find them in Connecticut so she often has to sub with habanero, which are similar in heat level, but have less of the “fruity” flavor of the scotch bonnet. Fortunately for me, I now live in New York and was able to find scotch bonnets at Essex Street Market (they were labeled “Jamaican hot pepper.”) Similar to other peppers, they come in green, yellow, orange or red.

The peppers bring the signature heat to this Caribbean dish, but the marinade is so much more complex than just spice. It also calls for garlic, scallions, onion, fresh ginger, fresh lime juice, brown sugar, allspice (called pimento in Jamaica), cinnamon, nutmeg, thyme, soy sauce and cooking oil. You will find those ingredients in pretty much any recipe online. As her own personal twist, Alexis also adds oyster sauce (there is a large Chinese influence in Jamaican cooking, with lots of soy sauce and oyster sauce), cilantro and a little red stripe beer. Feel free to leave them out, but I love all three of those things, so I appreciated an interesting new twist on this Jamaican classic.

You don’t have to spend too much time chopping, as you will pretty much just toss everything in the food processor. A note on the peppers though… each one is different, so it’s best to play it conservative and add more as you need. We made two batches, and put 4 peppers in the first and 5 in the second, with the seeds removed in two of the peppers each time. I think we started with 3, and built from there, sampling the marinade for spice level as we went.

*If you are not accustomed to working with hot peppers, you might want to wear gloves while chopping and marinating the chicken. Obviously, Alexis and I had no issues with it, just make sure to thoroughly wash your hands and avoid touching your eyes.

Throw everything in the food processor and blend until everything is evenly chopped and combined. (Alexis said you don’t even have to take the thyme leaves off… just chuck the whole sprig in, they will get blended up just fine.)

It will look something like this if you are using the beer (it will be more of a paste if you decide to omit it.) Again, test for seasoning and add more peppers (or salt & pepper), as needed.

Now for the fun part. You will add this marinade to approximately 4 pounds of chicken pieces. I bought a 2-pound package of drum sticks and a 2-pound package of bone-in chicken thighs. Bone-in and skin-on is best for flavor and keeping the chicken juicy, but you can substitute for boneless/skinless if you are one of those people who hate meat on the bone. (Don’t worry, I’m not one of those people.) Alexis often uses this marinade for jerk hot wings as well, which I plan on making for Super Bowl.

Score the chicken with a small knife, allowing more of the marinade to soak into the meat. Also don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty! Make sure that spicy marinade is massaged underneath the skin. It’s easiest to do this in a large rectangular baking dish. Cover and allow it to marinate at least 2 hours, but preferrably overnight. (She sometimes marinates for 2 days!)

*Apologies for the slightly blurry photos. Justin was working this day, so I was running camera for this one. Luckily Justin came to the rescue for editing them!

Alexis likes to do a combo of the oven and grill when cooking the chicken. Fortunately for us, it was a decently warm day for January (about 53 degrees), so we were able to utilize the grill on my building’s roof.

If you would like to do this method as well, bake in the oven for about 30 minutes (skin side up), and then finish them on the grill to get that nice char and smoky flavor. (Also make sure the internal temperature has reached 165 degrees.) In Jamaica, they grill them the entire time, so you can do that if you’d like. OR… if it’s too cold for grilling, you can finish them under the broiler to create a bit of a char and crispy skin.

If you are making “rice and peas” as they call it (or rice and beans), you can make it while the chicken is in the oven. It’s basically all the same flavors from the marinade combined with some coconut milk, rice & red kidney beans (she uses canned ones as a helpful shortcut.) If you would like the recipe for this, comment below and I will type up the recipe!

Serve chicken hot with the rice & peas. If you want to get all fancy, you can garnish with additional peppers, scallions and cilantro. Thanks to Alexis for sharing her recipe! I can’t wait to sample some from a roadside spot while in Jamaica next week!