Lunch / Dinner
Jerk-Spiced Grilled Chicken
Celebrate the unique tastes that Jamaican jerk food has to offer with this easy-to-prepare Jerk-Spiced Grilled Chicken. Spicy, sweet, and enticing, it’s a festival of flavors all in one bite.
If you’re looking for an out-of-this-world dish, jerk chicken ranks right up there. Native to Jamaica, it refers to both a combination of what you put on the meat and how it’s cooked.
Jerk starts with making a rub or paste of aromatic spices, including allspice, and very hot chiles, such as Scotch bonnets. Their initial flavor is sweet, but they’re more intense and hotter than a jalapeño. Cooking the jerk is the next step. Jamaicans start with a pit in the ground. To cook jerk at home, grill the chicken over indirect heat so it cooks through without scorching
Ingredients
PURÉE
PIERCE:
For added flavor, set a smoker box filled with hickory or apple chips on the grill and let them burn while the chicken cooks.
Instructions
Purée chiles, garlic, scallions, onion, ginger, lime juice, oil, brown sugar, thyme, allspice, salt, and pepper in a food processor.
Pierce hindquarters with a knife and place in a large dish. Coat hindquarters with scallion purée and cover with plastic wrap; chill 2 hours or up to one day.
Prepare grill for indirect grilling, heating one side to high and keeping the other side unlit to maintain a temperature of 400°.
Grill hindquarters, skin side up, indirectly (unlit side), covered, 25 minutes. Rotate hindquarters to evenly cook, and grill until a thermometer inserted in the thickest part but not touching bone registers 165°, 20 minutes more.
To avoid unwanted skin contact, wear gloves, and use a ¼ teaspoon measure to remove chile seeds.
Piercing the chicken with a knife allows the marinade to more easily penetrate into the meat.
Nutritional Facts
Nutritional Facts
Per serving
Calories: 652
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 46g 70%
Saturated Fat 12g 60%
Cholesterol 308mg 102%
Sodium 524mg 21%
Carbs 2g 0%
Fiber 0g 0%
Protein 54g
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.