Welcome Friends welcome back to the
kitchen today we're going to do a slow
smoked jerk chicken
um and to start with I'm going to make
the jerk marinade and
um
seems like a lot of ingredients but it's
really simple everything just goes into
the blender now for a jerk marinade
there are some very simple things that
you absolutely have to have in order to
call it a jerk marinade or a jerk sauce
or jerk seasoning or any of those things
um but once you sort of get out of those
first four or five ingredients every
family every cook every Chef is going to
add their own little bit of flavor to it
they're going to make it their way
they're going to have it they're going
to have a recipe that speaks to their
family tradition
and I'm no different I make this over
and over and over and over again and
every time I make it I change it a
little bit to see if you know those
tweaks will make a difference to the
flavor
um and today I'm going to be
substituting a couple of ingredients
because I don't have what I would
normally have since this is a jerk
seasoning you absolutely must have a
scotch bonnet pepper I'm only going to
use one today because I would like some
flavor over absolute Heat
next ingredient that you have to have
are scallions so in they go
and the scallions I'm using aren't
actually Jamaican scallions these are
green onions or spring onions they go by
a whole bunch of different names
a true Jamaican scallion has sort of a
purple color on the base it's not fully
purple but it has sort of a purple skin
slightly different flavor but these are
some of the concessions that you need to
make because you're not in Jamaica so
there's a grocery store close to us
called Blue Sky and they normally have
Jamaican scallions went there this
morning they didn't have any so we're
using green onions this is a very common
substitution and for the most part
there's so much flavor going on here a
lot of people a lot of people are really
going to notice so in that goes
next thing you absolutely have to have
is Allspice
and so this is ground allspice that I'm
putting in
um
comment I get anytime I use allspice is
come on man you didn't tell us what's in
your spice mix it's just called allspice
it is only one spice it is the berry of
the piment Tree in Jamaica
native to Jamaica native to the
Caribbean
and it's just one single Berry it
happens to be called allspice because it
tastes like a whole bunch of spices put
together but that's it it's not a mix
it's just one single spice and it is
probably the most important ingredient
in this marinade and in fact not just an
important ingredient in the marinade and
we'll get to this one we get to the
smoking point there's another component
also from the same shrubber tree
next thing you absolutely have to have
is fresh thyme
um so I've got some sprigs of fresh
thyme I don't take the leaves off I put
everything in the whole entire sprig
from this point on there's a lot of
commonality there's a lot of similarity
between recipes there's a lot of a lot
of you know really simple basic things
that people put into the marinade but
that's sort of the core group it is the
core group of flavors now to that we're
going to add brown sugar
cinnamon
about a thumb's worth of ginger
a couple of small onions or medium
onions we need garlic
early summer late spring here our garlic
isn't ready it's not fully grown but it
is flowering so I have a whole bunch of
garlic Scapes these this is the flower
that grows out of the top you have to
cut it off if you want to get a big bulb
of garlic on the bottom so I cut these
off as they appear they have
a very light fragrant garlic flavor so
I've got a bunch of Scapes that I just
went out and cut off
those go in but if you have garlic of
course put in garlic
now we get to the liquid portion so we
need soy sauce
a couple tablespoons of soy sauce I'm
using a naturally brewed tamari it has a
bolder flavor
vinegar you need a couple of tablespoons
of vinegar so I'm using today
an apple cider vinegar
and the same with some oil I've got some
olive oil but any vegetable oil will do
obviously you want to measure those
things extremely carefully now we need
lemon orange and lime juice the juice of
one of each so
let's get these Juiced
lime juice
lemon juice
and orange juice
lid on
okay that's good enough
smells great now
you could do this in a food processor
you don't have to bring it down to this
sort of liquefied consistency in a food
processor it would give you a little bit
more of a chunkier presentation
depending on what you're going to do
with it because I'm going to marinate
this chicken I want to be able to get it
everywhere all over all the time so I'm
looking for this more liquidy type
presentation
um really it's up to you now we're going
to put it on a spatchcock chicken so we
need to spatchcock a chicken
and if you've been here before you've
probably seen me do this so
this is what I do there's a natural seam
right here between the rib cage and the
thigh
and I just follow the knife on both
sides
down through that seam
brings me down here to the bottom where
the spine is
one cut through and that gives me
the the dark meat half
and the white meat half now on the white
meat half you'll see there is just a
little bit of spine here
and
I cut that out
just with the knife
really easy to do
spine and the neck is out
which leaves me with the white meat half
and you know of course you can just sort
of score the
breastbone a little bit
and peel it open like that just to make
it go flat if that's your thing and just
pour on the marinade
and
rub it in and all over
get it everywhere
now I've only used about half of the
marinade keep in the fridge in a sealed
container for a few weeks
I'm also going to use some of that at
the end of the cooking just to baste it
on a little bit and add some of that
flavor of course you can marinate inside
a plastic bag if that's your thing I
don't really do that so this is going to
go in the fridge for a couple of hours
um five six hours is ideal
an hour if you've only got an hour works
out just fine as well so into the fridge
get my hands clean get the get the
smoker set up and we'll bring this out
to the smoker
okay so I've let the chicken marinate
for I don't know three four hours at
this point I've got the Yoder smoker
heated up to 275 degrees Fahrenheit and
I'm using just a blend of pellets
if you wanted to be ultra traditional
Ultra authentic
um you would be smoking this over or
cooking this over pimiento wood or
pimento wood
um
that is the tree that grows the allspice
Berry and so you sort of with the smoke
you bring that flavor together and
really really make it one but
unfortunately
there is currently no one legally
bringing that wood into Canada
mostly because of the way it needs to be
double heat treated to kill off a pest
that would or could get into the
Canadian Forest system and kill off the
trees that you know keep our economy
going so
on go
275 degrees and we'll cook that until
it's cooked
okay jerk chicken now
stuck to the grill
hey friends stuck to the grill a little
bit
um but that's okay because I like the
skin but you had a pretty adventurous
day planned looks like it uh worked out
okay so far let's see let's cut this
let's start with the white meat
although since the Skin's already come
off
I'm surprised you just didn't throw that
in your mouth I know I know I'm
impressed good for you Glenn nice
restraint we'll get that leg off
oh it's just falling apart look at that
just okay I guess that's the piece to
try then yeah it's just
there you go there's a piece of legs for
you
chop up a little bit of the skin because
um
I'm gonna have that piece
it's very good but it has all those
lovely flavors of jerk in it this is a
this is a flavorful jerk sauce not a
smack you about the face hot jerk sauce
is it the also is it all spice yeah it's
the Old Spice that sorry here I am going
for a second piece so
other additions that you often see in
jerk that I didn't put in
nutmeg
cloves
black pepper I didn't put any black
pepper in
um and sometimes you see coriander I
didn't put that in so you can sort of
mold this into what you're what you're
looking for
I feel like jerk sauce like everything
else yeah is based on whatever your
family did and whatever you're used to
yes right because there's so many very
variations of it completely I put in one
scotch bonnet put in five if you want if
you really want that heat or put in one
scotch bonnet and then some other
peppers that are flavorful but not
necessarily as hot
and sort of bring that flavor around
um it's a great starting place
and I really like smoked chicken so
there we go
thanks for stopping by see you again
soon