Hi, I'm a big fan of Kenji's jerk chicken recipe (link below), in which marinated meat is cooked on beds of soaked bay leaf on a grill. But I still find a few notes missing when I compare with my favorite jerk sports in the Caribbean neighborhood in which I once lived, where I found that sweaty tension between chicken so good you wanted to eat it superfast but too spicy to not take your time.
So, for making jerk in my yard, I've found a little sugar helps (and a little more makes this recipe excellent for jerk pork), but I'm chasing after something further I can't quite identify. Also, even after a 24-hour bath in my scotch bonnet-heavy marinade, I find the spice does not get down to the bone the way it seems to at some of my favorite places. I'm wondering if anyone has tinkered with the recipe and technique, as has advice to offer. Thanks!
by Outrageous-Use-5189
1 Comment
Try going with legs and marinate longer to get the jerk right down to the bone.
We won $2000 1st place for our jerk chicken in competition three years in a row. Our secret was to spin legs over charcoal. Round and round basting as the skin crisps up. We couldn’t find traditional pimento wood so we used bay leaves and allspice berries. We also added a finishing sauce near completion which really made it pop. Basically unused jerk sauce, butter, lime and flaked salt. Our jerk punched your taste buds where it counts. It took a couple of hundred test runs to perfect our jerk over the years.