Jerk is clearly a Caribbean flavour staple and generally calls for the possibly fearsome scotch bonnet. My family are pretty tolerant of hot chillis but I steered clear of scotch bonnets until I tried this Jerk recipe. The original recipe called for 3 scotch bonnets but I reduced this to two and deseeded them. For me, this was a good balance of being really quite hot without sweating for an hour afterwards. More importantly, I do think they have a specific flavour that is worth trying.
This is clearly only a starting point and there is plenty of scope for variation. You can obviously adjust the heat by including the seeds and/or varying the number of chillis you use. Most recipes also call for onions and/or spring onions or chives. As I struggle with the flavour of onions, I have omitted them but would consider going for some chives or spring onions long before a green onion.
When marinading chicken, be sure to make some slashes in the skin and give it a good long marinade (24 hrs) if at all possible. This makes enough to marinade 12 chicken thighs.
Jerk Marinade
Ingredients
- 1 lime, juiced
- 3 tsp minced ginger (or some fresh ginger if you prefer)
- 2 tsp minced garlic (or some fresh garlic cloves)
- 2 scotch bonnets, deseeded
- 1 tsp dried thyme, herbes de provence, oregano or similar
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 3 tbsp soft brown sugar
- 1 tbsp ground allspice
Instructions
- Making the marinade is no more compex than simply belnding everything to a puree - next time, I will try adding the zest of the lime along with the juice. If marinading chicken then add some slashes to the skin so that the marinade can flavour all of the meat.