Jamaican Jerk Chicken

Ingredients

• 1.5kg bone-in chicken thighs and drumsticks, skin on
• 6 Scotch bonnet peppers, stems removed
• 8 spring onions, roughly chopped
• 8 garlic cloves
• 1 thumb of fresh ginger, peeled
• 3 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
• 2 tbsp ground allspice
• 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 4 tbsp dark brown sugar
• 4 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 4 tbsp white vinegar
• 3 tbsp lime juice
• 3 tbsp neutral oil
• 2 tsp fine salt
• A handful of pimento wood chips or oak chips, soaked
• To serve: rice and peas, festival dumplings and lime wedges

Before you cook

• Pull on gloves before handling the Scotch bonnets, and keep your hands away from your face.
• Remove the stems from the peppers and roughly chop the spring onions.
• Peel the ginger and garlic.
• Score each piece of chicken twice down to the bone so the marinade can reach the middle.
• Soak the wood chips in water for thirty minutes.

Steps

1. Put the Scotch bonnets, spring onions, garlic, ginger and thyme into a blender.
2. Add the allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, black pepper, brown sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, lime juice, oil and two teaspoons of salt.
3. Blend for one minute to a thick, dark green paste, scraping down the sides once.
4. Taste a fingertip of the marinade, and reduce the peppers next time if it is beyond what you enjoy.
5. Set aside four tablespoons of the marinade in a covered bowl in the fridge for basting.
6. Rub the rest of the marinade all over the chicken, working it deep into the scored cuts and under the skin.
7. Cover the chicken and refrigerate for at least eight hours, ideally overnight.
8. Take the chicken out of the fridge forty minutes before cooking so it loses its chill.
9. Set up a barbecue for indirect cooking, with coals banked on one side and a target temperature of 160C.
10. Drain the soaked wood chips and scatter them over the coals.
11. Lay the chicken skin side up on the cool side of the grill, away from the coals.
12. Close the lid and cook for fifty minutes, turning the pieces once halfway.
13. Brush the chicken with the reserved marinade and cook for another fifteen minutes with the lid down.
14. Move the pieces directly over the coals for four minutes a side, watching closely as the sugar will catch fast.
15. Check that the thickest thigh reads 75C on a thermometer and that the juices run clear.
16. Rest the chicken on a board for ten minutes.
17. Chop the pieces through the bone in the Jamaican way, and serve with rice and peas, festival and lime wedges.