I've been making lots of Jamaican jerk chicken.
The marinade is store bought. Walkerswood Traditional Jerk Seasoning. (My local stores ran out for over a month, probably cuz of covid. So I found it on amazon, in larger quantity, and less than half the price per unit weight.)
I use a wood pellet grill (Traeger Pro 575, which has wifi and a phone app for monitoring and controlling the grill).
Here are the steps I follow:
- Marinate overnight. (Lately I've been reducing the potency of the marinade by mixing 1 part olive oil with 2 parts marinade.)
- Cook 2 to 3 hours at low temp (around 185F), which smokes the meat.
- Flip the meat. Insert probe. Set to 450F. Cook until the internal probe reads 205F.
- Check if there are any pieces ready to be removed, possibly flip, then continue cooking for another 10 minutes.
- Repeat cycle until all pieces are removed.
When are the pieces ready? I like crispy skin and some black char. My kids like it less cooked than I do, so I remove some pieces earlier in the process for my kids.
Some notes:
- I've done this basic recipe many times, with many variations. In some cases I've had extra marinade which I added on the chicken after the low temp cooking phase. I don't know if this is a good idea. My thinking is that I'm getting more jerk seasoning onto the meat.
- I learned this recipe from a friend who said that he sometimes scores the meat before grilling. He said it's for cooking the inside meat better. I thought it was for getting more jerk seasoning into the meat.
- The friend also sometimes cuts up the meat towards the end of the grilling (with a butcher knife going through even the bone), and adds it back on the grill. This is similar to scoring the meat before grilling.
- I've done this recipe with chicken wings and leg quarters. I prefer the wings.
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