Jerk Chicken

Jerk is arguably the very best marinade for chicken; spicy, sweet, earthy, tangy, hot...it covers all bases.  
The most authentic jerk chicken uses the whole bird, jointed, however I often make it to serve in wraps so in this case use boneless and skinless thighs.  If you want to be authentic but don't want to go down the whole chicken route you can use one or two packs of legs and thighs that most supermarkets sell.

This recipe has been slightly adapted from the one given to me by my lovely cousin-in-law, Nadia Mahabir who regularly cooks Trinidadian food for the good people of West Sussex.  I feel the need to confess, she would not approve of using boneless thighs as in Trinidad they always use meat on the bone...and while I'm in the confessional mood I may as well admit that I don't always use scotch bonnet chillies (those days that I fancy a gentle hum of heat rather than a searing fire!).

For 1 whole jointed chicken or around 2kg of legs and thighs.  It's also fantastic with pork and works amazingly well with salmon.

Ingredients

100ml Malt Vinegar

2 Scotch Bonnet Chillies, finely sliced with seeds

1 Red Onion, roughly diced

100ml Dark Soy Sauce

2 tablespoons Olive Oil

6 Garlic cloves, minced

50g Dark Muscovado Sugar

100ml Orange Juice

1 tablespoon Fresh Thyme
Generous grinding of Black Pepper

2 teaspoons All Spice

2 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon

1 teaspoon Ground Nutmeg (best grated directly from the whole nutmeg but use ready ground if you don't have a suitable grater)

1 thumb size piece of Fresh Ginger, peeled and finely sliced (use 1 teaspoon of ground ginger if you can't get fresh, still great, a bit more earthy)

Juice of 2 Lemons
Juice of 2 Limes

• Measure and tip all of the ingredients into a large bowl including the squeezed pieces of lemons and limes.
• Give it all a big thorough stir.
• Place the chicken (or pork, salmon, anything else you fancy jerking) into the marinade and squish it all around to cover all surfaces of the meat.
• Ideally let the meat marinate for 24 hours or, if not, at least 8 hours, giving it a stir occasionally to make sure the marinade is permeating as much of the meat as possible.
• This really is best barbecued, however if the weather doesn't allow it, cooking on a high heat in a ridged griddle pan also works well.  If you are using large pieces of jointed chicken oven-cook them at 200C for 20 minutes then finish them off on the barbecue.  Make sure that it is thoroughly cooked by cutting right into the middle of the chicken piece to check there is no pink.