Jerk Chicken

This is one jerk you’ll happily invite to your dinner table.

(Jump to the recipe file here.)

Last week, sort of late in the afternoon when I still had no ideas for what I wanted to make for dinner, I asked Kevin if he had any ideas or a hankering for anything… …and his answer was Jerk Chicken. What a great idea! Just not at 4:45 in the afternoon.

So I put that suggestion in my back pocket and ended up making it last week.

Jerk Chicken is one of those marinate overnight kind of things, so I did a whole chicken (even though a lot of recipes out there call for 2 or 3 whole chickens. Wow.  I used one chicken, and we ate it for 3 nights in a row:

Monday – Jerk Chicken, Tangy Cole Slaw, and Baked Plantains with Aji Verde

Tuesday – Jerk Chicken, Arepas, Mango Salad (& leftover Aji Verde), and actual salad

Wednesday – Jerk Chicken Tacos (using up more of that Mango Salad and Aji Verde)

And then it was gone!

(Another great use for some leftovers would be my Leftover-Turkey Noodle Soup, because that soup base works really, really well with especially heavily marinated or even glazed poultry. That Turkey-Noodle Soup recipe is basically my chicken soup recipe, but it’s unbelievably tasty with leftover glazed turkey. Come Thanksgiving, I’ll share all about glazing a turkey, well in advance of Thanksgiving so you can have all the time to decide to do it that way.)

Back to Jerk Chicken!

[I ended up really wanting to try this recipe I found on Food & Wine, fyi.]

Jerk Chicken

You’ll Need:

• 1 whole chicken, which you’ll carve
• 1 medium yellow or white onion, chopped
• 2-3 scallions (or a good bunch of chives)
• 3 chili peppers* (I used 1 Fresno, 1 Serrano, and 1 Anaheim)
• 2-4 garlic cloves (to your tastes)
• 1 Tbs Chinese 5 Spice Powder
• 1 Tbs allspice
• 1 Tbs freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ cup soy sauce
• 1 Tbs olive oil (or any good quality vegetable or high-smoke-point oil)

*A note on the peppers to use: I used a mix of mild, but still pretty flavorful peppers. The original recipe that I followed most closely called for 3 scotch bonnet peppers. The takeaway from this is that you can definitely play with the heat level with the choice of peppers right here. I went with this flavorful, milder mix (1.) because I could find them, (2.) they’re peppers that I find pretty flavorful without being overpowering, and (3.) my 11-year-old would still be able to love dinner too. But you can play around with pepper choices and adjust to your tastes and heat preferences!

Start by carving the chicken.

Rinse and pat dry and lay the bird flat of a carving board. Pull the leg-thigh away from the body and with a sharp paring knife, cut the skin. Then find the ligaments in the joints and pull gently but firmly with your hands and when you get resistance from the tendon, slice gently with your very sharp knife. You just want to be sure not to cut any bone, because that’ll make some brittle, sharp places when cooked later. Repeat the process on finding the tendon in the wing. Then separate the breast meat from the backbone.

[You can keep the carcass in the freezer until you’ve gathered 2 or 3 and then you can make chicken bone broth. They keep for at least 3 months in the freezer.]

Place the chicken pieces: thigh-legs, each breast half, and the two wings, in a single layer in a large dish.

Next make the Jerk Sauce.

Dice your onion and add to a blender carafe or the bowl of a food processor. Then slice the scallions. Slice the tops off your peppers, cut them in half then peel out the pith and remove the seeds. Then chop them into big chunks.

Peel and lightly smash your garlic cloves.

Then add your spices**: 1 Tbs Chinese 5 Spice, 1 Tbs allspice, 1 Tbs freshly ground black pepper, 1 tsp dried thyme, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp salt.

**If you don’t have Chinese 5 Spice, you can just put together a Tablespoon of the following: star anise, cloves, cinnamon, fennel, and black pepper in a ratio in that order, meaning not equal parts of all. I also found a mix called Jamaican Inspired Jerk Powder by Simple Truth that contains onion powder, coconut sugar, garlic powder, salt, paprika, and vinegar powder, so any and all of that would be good in place of the Chinese 5 Spice too. I also have a Harissa seasoning blend that contains garlic powder, paprika, salt, citric acid, sumac, and tomato powder, which would also be a nice substitute. Any of those routes will give you a nice, warming flavor.

Finally, add your ½ cup soy sauce and 1 Tbs oil.

And blend!

It should take less than a minute to come to a thick but pourable marinade that will coat your chicken perfectly.

[Funny side story: By the time I actually got around to making the marinade, it was about 11pm, and the house was so quiet… …I took my Vitamix to the detached garage and blended by Jerk Marinade out there. That’s how I show love.]

Pour the sauce over the chicken pieces then then flip and coat each piece on all sides.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Nighty night!

When ready to grill, remove from the refrigerator whichever pieces you’d like to grill 30 minutes beforehand to bring them to room temperature.

Preheat your grill to medium-high (about 400˚F).

(I grilled half of the chicken pieces the first night and left the other half of the pieces in the marinade, covered in the fridge one more night.)

Wipe off some of the excess sauce, but no need to go crazy about it. You still want the marinade on the chicken, but you don’t want to set your grill completely on fire, so find a happy medium in between naked chicken and a fire ball on the patio.

Grill for a total of 35 to 40 minutes. I flipped mine every 4-5 minutes, to keep the charring just that: charred but not charcoal.

When the chicken pieces will register 165˚F once removed from the grill and allowed to rest for 5 minutes, they are done. For me, this means removing the larger breast pieces when a thermometer inserted into the thickest part registers 160-161˚F and when the smaller, wing pieces register 163˚F.

As I alluded before, allow the pieces to sit for 5 minutes before serving.

Enjoy with Tangy Cole Slaw, Baked Plantains with Aji Verde, Mango Salad, Arepas, or turned into Tacos or Chicken Soup!

But Enjoy!

—Becky

Download the recipe file here.