Caribbean Jerked Chicken

This recipe is from one of my favorite cookbooks, "Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook". Well, it was a favorite before Rand and I weren't eating dairy or tomatoes. There's a lot of both in here. But, I've made quite a few recipes from the book and overall have been pretty pleased.

I found this recipe the other day and was drawn to it because it required only minimal substitutions. Enjoy!

Caribbean Jerked Chicken

cooker requirements: Medium or large round or oval
setting and cook time: LOW for 5-6 hours

1/2 sliced green onions
2 T grated fresh ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 T olive oil
3 jalapenos, seeded and coarsely chopped
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp salt
pinch of red pepper flakes
1-2 cloves garlic, to your taste
2 T firmly packed brown sugar
1 T cider vinegar
1 T orange juice
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
4 bone-in chicken thighs, with the skin on, and 4 drumsticks

1. In a food processor, combine the first 10 ingredients (green onions through garlic) and process until very finely chopped, almost smooth. Stir in the brown sugar, vinegar, OJ, and Worcestershire sauce to form a paste. Using a brush, apply the jerk sauce so it completely coats the chicken; use up all of the sauce.

2. Put a wire rack in the slow cooker. Place the chicken on the wire rack. Cover and cook on LOW until the chicken is tender and cooked through, 5-6 hours. Serve immediately.


My Notes: For a start, I only used chicken thighs, and they weren't bone-in. They were (so helpfully!!!) boneless and skinless. Because of that, I didn't use a wire rack. I just put the thighs on the bottom of the slow cooker and spooned the sauce over them. Also because they were boneless, they only took a little over 2 hours to cook. Since I had planned on them being ready in 5-6 hours, I put the chicken (and all the juices and remaining sauce) in the fridge and reheated then them in the oven at 350 for about 10 min right before dinner.(That wasn't long enough and we had to pop them in the microwave before eating, but had I left them in the oven longer, they would have been fine. I wasn't worried about the meat drying out because I had scooped all the juices and remaining sauce from the slow cooker into the dish with the chicken.) I also skipped the jalapenos and used about 1T Sriracha sauce (a Thai chile sauce) instead. Don't be afraid to dial back on the spice until you have your desired heat-level.

You can serve this with rice, or beans and rice as I attempted. Here's the recipe I tried to use; I would recommend using canned beans unless you're a whiz with beans from scratch. http://www.jamaican-recipes.com/riceandpeas.html The flavor of the rice and beans using the coconut milk was awesome, very creamy. I also mixed into the beans the remaining juices and sauce leftover from the chicken. I think this gave the beans and rice a better depth of flavor.

I will definitely make the Caribbean Jerked Chicken again, as well as beans and rice. I might have to find another recipe, and practice making scratch beans first, though!