![]() Today, you’ll find jerk huts all over Jamaica – indeed, you’ll probably smell them before you leave the airport – but, if you’re not hopping back to the island any time soon, it’s easy to get a taste of the Caribbean in your very own garden. (The name, apparently, is the Spanish version of an Andean dialect word for dried meat, ch’arki – presumably because the original jerk would have been smoked to preserve it.) ![]() Jerk’s distinctive seasoning – hot peppers, sweet allspice berries, thyme and ginger – however, is credited to the African slaves brought to the island by its Spanish and British colonisers, who also introduced the cooking pits which were traditionally used for jerk until the advent of the modern oil drum. Native to Jamaica, the tradition began with the indigenous Taíno people who would cook their meat over fires made from the aromatic wood of the island’s allspice trees – still the only way, devotees claim, to get that really authentic flavour (no one seems to import it the UK, so I’ll have to take their word for it). Let’s face it: spicy, crisply barbecued chicken or pork are an easier sell for most of us than hard food or stew peas. If these two styles can be considered Jamaican Jerk, then my theory is that you can jerk chicken in an oven.If you’re familiar with any aspect of Caribbean cuisine, then it will almost certainly be jerk. Instead, they layer zinc on top of the meat to simulate the enclosed box of heat. In Portland, at Boston Jerk Centre, nobody digs a pit. Pan chicken is a version of jerk chicken, but it is not grilled over pimento wood. the cooking process must be completed in an enclosed heat box (not like grilling which is done open air).you must jerk chicken using smoke AND heat from pimento wood.Nowadays, we attempt to replicate that using a drum, an American style BBQ pit or on a grill covered in a sheet of zinc metal.Įssentially to be called authentic jerk chicken as it was originally created: – Some persons today still jerk meat in this ancient way, but it is going to very hard to do this commercially as it takes significantly longer. Jerk Chicken was originally cooked similar to modern Barbacoa tacos, i.e., buried in a shallow pit and covered over. ![]() So anyway, I won’t go off on a rant today, make your jerk seasoning however you’d like, once it’s not using Gordon Ramsay’s recipe ( watch this to see what I mean – I was shocked). This is a controversial statement, but that’s what I think! You must consider that ancient Maroons and Tainos wouldn’t have had access to all the fancy stuff we add to jerk today. However, you only need three ingredients to make jerked chicken –Įverything else is added to enhance those core ingredients. The seasoning style is quite easy, and each person has their own marinade/wet rub/dry rub/all of the above. the cooking method – specifically the heat AND smoke from pimento wood.What makes jerk chicken jerk? From everything I’ve researched about the history of jerk chicken (or any jerked meat or vegetable), Jamaican Jerk consists of two techniques: This makes for a good lunch break diversion. ![]() So, I wanted to test and see if I can come up with a solution on how to truly create authentic Jamaican jerk chicken in the oven! Watch my video experiment below. Yet, I see so many people on Tik Tok attempting jerk chicken in their oven. Everyone told me not to do this! One pan chicken chef that I interviewed said, “Ah nuh jerk dat! Ah bake chicken dat!” (Translation: By definition, anything jerked in an oven is baked chicken)
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