Jerk Chicken


 

JimK

TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
I found Walkerswood mild recently at the store and grabbed a few jars to try out. Really like the 'regular', but even though I like a little heat, find it to be too hot for me. The mild still has a pretty good kick. Did up some chicken last night, along w/ black beans and zucchini. Fire ran super hot and I overdid the thighs a bit. But it was still enjoyable.

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Nicely done Jim. That's good stuff. I bought a bunch when we were in Jamaica a few years back. I need to get some more
 
I have to see if I can find some of that Walkerswood's mild Jamaican seasoning, love the Jamaican Jerk flavor just haven't sound the right sauce.
 
You can make jerk marinade easily and much better than anything you can buy. Jerk isn’t typically sauced, i.e., jerk isn’t sauced after it’s cooked, all though you certainly can if you’d like. Jerk is more about the marinade and the procedure. To that end, make your own marinade and make sure to use pimento wood during the cook.
 
Jim - thanks for that post. I'm going to try some walkers wood chicken tonight. I believe we can buy it on amazon, although I have a few places in STL I can buy it. I've been mixing it with mayonnaise & lime juice and using it to make jerk Cole slaw for a few years. Lots of my friends really like it. It's especially good if you mix in a few walnuts with the slaw it sort of adds a bit more texture.

I believe the key to using Walkers Wood is finding the right way to cut it without loosing the texture/flavor since the flavor is really concentrated (especially on the medium or hot strength. I think I'm going to try yogurt instead of mayo with my chicken tonight. I will share some picks and let everyone know how it turns out.
 
Let's keep this post going because I don't think there is enough info on the web about how to use Walkers Wood. True to my word, I made some Walker's Wood chicken last night. I mixed about 1/4 cup of Walkers Wood Hot into about 1.5 cups of whole fat greek yogurt (a 1:6 ratio). I tasted the mixture and thought it was pretty spicy, and could possibly ruin the chicken, but decided that since I only had about 6 hours to marinate it might be OK. I used some leg quarters and thighs, and put slits in the skin and meat so I could get the mixture into the meat and under the skin. I slathered on the marinade and had a lot left over (I probably had enough to do 3 or 4 whole chickens). I'll know better next time.

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I put my chicken in the fridge for about 6 hours and at around 5:15 or so, I set up the 22" WSM by installing my fire dial to help handle grease flare ups, and put one layer of unlit briquettes on the charcoal grate, and covered that with one chimney of lit briquettes. I left all the vents wide open and was running about 275 to 300 on the WSM's dome thermometer (on a scorching hot day in STL). Given poor planning and zero availability of pimento wood in my backyard, I stuck a 18" long chunk of pecan in the hot coals.

I turned on the reggae music and put the chicken on the top grate and didn't try turning it for about 20 minutes. After that first 20 minutes the skin was looking pretty good so I let it go another 5 and gave it a flip. Eventually I closed the vents down to about half way when the chicken grease started to render a bit just to make sure we didn't have a grease fire the temps jumped up a bit to 300 ~325 as more coals continued to light.
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So, here we are on the plate, with some salad, rice and beans and a nice looking leg quarter
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So, as I said before, I thought this might turn out too spicy, but it didn't. The jerk flavor was pretty light, but did have a little "back-heat", and a nice kiss of smoke and enough salt. I checked my jar of Walkers to make sure it wasn't stale, and it was by label still pretty fresh [expires in Aug 2021). I really liked how the greek yogurt helped the jerk stick to the chicken, so I'm going to use it again for sure. I'm going to try a 1:3 ratio of jerk to yogurt and marinate for about the same time to see how that turns out. I may also add a bit of lime juice to the marinate to up the acid, and maybe a bit of allspice or fresh habenero to make it more "jerky".
 

 

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