This is a personal favourite of Odo and myself. There several very adequate jerk marinades on the market (Walkerswood is the best), but as always there is no substitute for making your own. Caution, this recipe makes a very hot marinade paste, of which you only need a teaspoon per chicken breast.

Ingredients (makes enough marinade for 4-8 breasts)

• 10 Birds-eye or 3 Scotch Bonnet chillies¹
• 6 spring onions
• 1 tsp allspice (try to buy the berries whole if possible)
• 1 tsp coriander seed
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp lemon rind
• Juice of a lemon
• 8 black peppercorns
• Sunflower oil

And, per person:

• 1 chicken breast, preferably skin-on
• 2 flour tortillas
• Mayonnaise and green leaf salad
• Cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices, to serve.

What you do

1. Chop the chillies and spring onions, and put them into a food processor with the spices, lemon jucie and lemon rind. Blitz until you have a coarse paste. Add a little sunflower oil and blitz slowly to make the paste into a workable consistency.
2. Tip the paste out into a cold, dry frying pan, and stir-fry over a low heat until the paste turns brown and starts releasing its aroma.
3. Slash the chicken breasts, top and bottom, three or four times. Rub the paste deep into the chicken, cover and leave for 8 hours or more.
4. Oven bake the chicken at 180°C (360°F, Gas Mark 5) for 35 minutes until the skin is crispy.
5. Spread each tortilla with mayonnaise and sprinkle over a few salad leaves. Slice the chicken breasts and place the slices on top of each tortilla. Roll up and serve immediately with the tomato and cucumber.

Variations

The jerk chicken itself is very nice barbecued and served with traditional rice & peas or even cous-cous.

Back to my recipe book.