Jerk it

Hey party people! I have had this window open for literally hours and not done a thing until now. Facebook notified me that my cousin Andrew had updated his website so when I checked it out I saw that, much to my elation, he had created a blog back in July. He has abandoned his photography job, friends and life here to have himself an amazing New York adventure. From facebook I could only guess as to what the photos represented and the meaning behind the status updates was. I could barely pull myself away from his blog in order to update mine :) Once I read every post and caught up on everything he's been through in the last 6 months with astonishment painted on my face, I came back to my little blog. I guess my blog's cool and all... but the content is totally not as adventurous as his. He's a rap dancer for sure :) Not in the true sense of the word. Or maybe he is. He probably is.

So instead of trekking around the globe physically, I have been doing so culinarily. In my defence, I have been doing it from a distance of 26km from home. Rather exotic, don't you think? So, while I was house-sitting, the rains that devastated parts of Queensland merely annoyed me as I sat inside staring wistfully at the pool and reading about the horrific events in the North in the daily paper that was delivered to the door. Being house-bound, and having realised I am no longer good at reading piano sheet music, naturally I turned to TV for something to do. And because they had Foxtel, the cooking channel quickly became my closest companion.... apart from Josh of course ;) I got to watch some of my old favourites (like the cook and the chef and Jamie Oliver), I got to explore shows i had seen only once or twice (like Nigella), and I got to see NEW shows which I now LOVE... like Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers. Good Times! I also saw one show called World Kitchen where the host focused on Jamaican Food for the episode. I had always wanted to try Jerk Chicken, but after seeing some Jamaican dudes cooking it in the forest I was determined to try my hand at it... although in a suburban kitchen as apposed to underground smoking techniques. Mind you, if I could have, I would have tried. So I did some obligatory research and made a list of ingredients then somehow convinced poor Josh to join me at Footscray Markets on a muggy rainy day. If you were there, you would have spotted us.. we were the bored looking and nasally assaulted boy and the over-excited girl whose eyes were glazed over like a stunned pikachu as she surveyed the produce going "pi----kaaaaaaa". Needless to say, I had fun and it was cool to be back in Footscray. I want to go back again soon to do some people watching, it is a mecca for people who are for lack of a better word... characters.

So back at the house, I gathered my ingredients...

That may seem like a lot of ingredients for marinated chicken, right? Yes, in fact you are right. But it is worth it. If I may borrow one of Jamie Oliver's catch phrases, this is DEAD EASY. This is the second time i have forgotten to bring the recipe with me so I will post it in a few days, but for now please enjoy my brief explanations of each step :)

STEP 1) Basically put everything except the chicken in a blender and you have your Jerk Marinade....

STEP 2) Cut up your chicken. You can butterfly it, but I wanted two smaller peices to start off with so I cut it in half with some heavy duty kitchen scissors... Josh looked like he was going to vomit all over the bench when i was snapping the bones. attractive...

STEP 3) Take a childish photo. I couldn't resist......

STEP 4) Pierce the chicken all over with a fork, then spoon the marinade over it. It is recommended to leave it like this overnight, but I only left it for a few hours...

While it's marinating, prepare some nice soothing and cooling salads to combat the fiery heat of the chicken.

STEP 5) Cook it. I wanted it to have a charcoal flavour so we opted for the barbecue cooking method. We had the heat up high and placed them on the hotplate with the body cavity side down. We turned the heat down, closed the lid and left it for 15 mins. Then we turned them over to give the breast and leg a bit of a blast and left it for another 15 mins. I basted it a little along the way with the left-over marinade to ensure the flavour was there in full force. This was our cooked product:

STEP 6) Cut it up. Every recipe I read or saw on tv/youtube called for it to be cleavered up into smaller pieces which I was pretty chuffed about. In the absence of a meat cleaver, I opted for a big ass knife and cut it up, cracking through bones to reach my goal...

STEP 7) Serve up, and EAATTTTTTT:

Oh my god, it has been such a long time since I have had such deliciously succulent chicken! I don't know what I did to make it so good but we all agreed that it was superb. SUPERB. Everyone got seconds, if that's any indication! If you follow my lead, you should reach the same effect. I'll post the recipe soon, so please give it a go. It's super easy. I didnt use enough habanero chillies due to my unfamiliarity with their heat so it wasn't spicy, just.....orgasmic.

So there you have it, dish THIRTY out of 52! How exciting! I have already got many more dishes that I want to make of course. Probably none of which are low-fat :P All this heavy food has made me do the un-thinkable today... WALK half an hour to the train station this morning. Wow. Then I went for another 30 min walk at lunch time. Unthinkable! I feel good though. Oh I just remembered, I'll be doing some PROPER camping next month. Another tick off the list. I better get moving hey? ;) Time's running out. And don't even tell me that I missed the December Poem... I am fully aware of my blunder. December was an exceptionally hectic month for me, so i'll be doubling up this month :) I'm sure nobody really cares except me anyway so we cool!

JERK CHICKEN RECIPE:

- 1 chicken (un-marinated)
- 3 habanero chillies (i only used 2 and it wasn't hot)
- 2 medium brown onions (you can add spring onions too for another layer of flavour)
- 8 cloves of garlic
- 2 Tbsp each of: fresh thyme, ground allspice, Sugar, Salt
- 2 tsp Ground black pepper
- 1-2 tsp: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/2 soy sauce
- Juice of 1 lime
- 1 cup orange juice
- 1 cup white vinegar

Blend it all up and rub it on the chicken, pierce the chicken with a fork here and there. I butterflied my chicken to get the most marinade on it. Leave overnight or as long as you can then BBQ it. :)