Jerk Chicken

Story

Jerk cooking originated with the indigenous Taino people of Jamaica, who slow-cooked meat on raised wooden structures called barbacoa using native bird peppers and pimento (allspice), a practice documented by Spanish historian Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes in 1516. When England seized Jamaica from Spain in 1655, Spanish colonists freed their enslaved Africans, who fled into the Blue Mountains and became the Jamaican Maroons, a word derived from the Spanish cimarrones meaning mountaineers. The Maroons learned the Taino technique and combined it with African traditions of smoking and spicing meat, cooking wild boar in underground smokeless pits over pimento wood so the fires would not betray their position to British forces: as Jamaican scholar Carolyn Cooper has described it, jerk is an enduring legacy of the fusion of African and Taino cultures. The word jerk most likely derives from the Spanish charqui, the Quechua-rooted term for dried preserved meat, which also gave English the word jerky.

Ingredients

• For the jerk marinade:
• 4 to 6 Scotch bonnet peppers, stems removed (reduce to 2 for milder heat)
• 1 yellow onion, roughly chopped
• 6 cloves garlic
• 4 stalks scallions, roughly chopped
• 3 tablespoons fresh ginger, roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon pimento berries (whole allspice) or 1.5 teaspoons ground allspice
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons fine salt
• 1 tablespoon cracked black pepper
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• For the chicken:
• 1 whole chicken, approximately 1.6 kg, jointed into 8 pieces, skin on, or 1.6 kg bone-in skin-on thighs and drumsticks

Method

• 1. Make the marinade: place all marinade ingredients into a blender or food processor and blend on high until a smooth, thick paste forms. Taste carefully (it will be intensely hot) and adjust salt or lime juice as desired. The marinade will keep for up to 6 months in a sealed jar in the refrigerator.
• 2. Score each piece of chicken 2 to 3 times through the skin down to the bone with a sharp knife. This allows the marinade to penetrate deeply.
• 3. Place the chicken pieces in a large bowl or zip-lock bag. Add 6 to 8 tablespoons of the marinade and work it into every surface and into the scored cuts. Cover and refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours, and ideally overnight. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking to allow the chicken to come to room temperature.
• 4. To grill: prepare a charcoal barbecue for indirect heat, banking the coals to one side. If you can find pimento wood chips, soak them in water for 30 minutes and add to the coals for authentic smoke. Place the chicken pieces on the cooler side of the grill, cover, and cook low and slow at around 150 to 160 degrees C for 45 minutes, turning occasionally.
• 5. Move the chicken over the direct heat for the final 10 to 15 minutes to char and crisp the skin, basting with any reserved marinade. The chicken is done when the juices run clear and the internal temperature at the thickest part reaches 75 degrees C.
• 6. To oven cook: place the marinated chicken pieces on a wire rack set over a foil-lined roasting tin. Roast at 200 degrees C for 40 minutes, turning once halfway through, until the skin is deeply charred in places and the juices run clear. For extra smoke, place a small ovenproof dish of pimento wood chips or soaked wooden chips on the oven floor for the last 20 minutes.
• 7. Rest the chicken for 5 minutes, then chop each piece into smaller sections with a heavy cleaver in the traditional manner. Serve with festival (sweet fried dumplings), rice and peas, and sliced pickled cabbage.

Common questions