This started when I grew Habanero peppers without a
clear purpose. I liked the looks of
them, knew they were hot, and figured they would fit right in with the
serranos, poblanos, jalapenos, and those little red cherry peppers I grow. They didn’t.
The jalapenos are mild enough these days to be used in most
anything. Serranos go great with
tomatillos and onion for a Verde sauce,
and poblanos can be used instead of bell peppers for kick. All of them go well in chili. They’re useful
all around peppers. Sort of like Zobrist
for the Cubs. You can play him almost
anywhere. But the Habaneros are a
different story.
I’m not a good judge of peppers because I like hot food a
lot and tolerate spicy heat well. I knew
the Habaneros were a problem when I had my family to the house for the annual
McClure wiener roast and golf outing years ago.
The golfers used to come early and I’d make breakfast for them. Usually omelets. I used habaneros in a nephew’s omelet, one of
the more adventurous nephews too. He
took one bite and looked at me as if I’d poisoned him. They don’t travel well, the Habaneros. You have to be careful how you use them. Aside from some insanely hot Thai peppers I
grow from time to time, they’re the hottest thing in the garden.
Then I made a Christmas trip to Jamaica with my family and got
hooked on Jamaican Jerk. We were in Negril. I began asking the locals where they went
when they wanted great jerk chicken and the nearly unanimous choice was Bourbon
Beach. We made a pilgrimage there and
found a no-name beat to hell shack on the
beach with a sheet metal and palm frond roof, a single wall behind the kitchen,
an open-air homemade bar and stools in
the sand. A pile of wood was on the
beach next to the stove. The kitchen,
such as it was, was mostly a built up brick and concrete block fire pit with
wire refrigerator shelves suspending halves
of chicken above a wood fire. On top of
each chicken half was a brick. Behind the bar a barrel of ice held cold
bottles of beer. The menu was jerk
chicken, rice, and Red Stripe Beer.
The only choice available was whether you wanted half a
chicken or a quarter. My son and I each
had a half. My wife and my son’s friend
ordered a quarter. Upon hearing the
orders the young man behind the bar took the bricks off three chicken halves
and placed two on tin plates. The last
half he placed on a board, and whacked it violently with a giant cleaver. The two recently separated quarter pieces
jumped up and settled back on the board.
He put the quarters on two more tin plates, added a spoon of rice to
each, and ladled up four small bowls of jerk sauce from a stone crock by the
fire. I figured the sauce would have
been baked on the chicken. Not at this
joint.
As locals came to the bar and ordered up jerk chicken I
noticed that the young man ladled the jerk sauce directly on their plate, covering
the chicken and rice. Evidently they’d learned to let the tourists
control their own destiny spice wise. My
wife tentatively dipped her fork in the sauce and had a sample. She went sparingly, dipping forkfuls of
chicken lightly in the bowl of jerk sauce.
I dumped the bowl on my plate. It
was delicious. I decided I had to figure
out how to make it.
The deal with hot food is that pure heat means nothing. Within the hotness there needs to be flavor,
preferably lots of flavors that hit you at different times. That’s what good jerk sauce or jerk marinade
has, complex flavors and of course, heat.
This jerk sauce had it all. The
young man who served it claimed he had no idea what was in it or how it was
made. He just worked there he said,
smiling. We ordered more Red
Stripes.
When I got home from Jamaica I began researching and
reviewing jerk recipes on the internet and picked one that made sense to me,
made from fresh ingredients. The recipe
I ended up with is a marinade that I use to flavor chicken wings mostly, in a zip lock bag overnight, but also Cornish hens, pork, skirt steak, anything
really that you grill. I think it tastes
best to grill whatever marinated meat you choose over charcoal or a wood fire, but
you can also add to the marinade and make a table sauce like they did at the
joint in Negril.
It’s labor intensive to make, but I look forward to it. If you’re going to go to the trouble of
making this, you might as well make a lot. It has
a lot of ingredients. I make enough to have
several meals, give some to my kids, and serve
at a party or two. It’s an annual thing now. I’ve taken to growing my own Habaneros, thyme
and garlic. In fact, I’ve been joined in this deal by a
friend who grows Habaneros solely to trade to me for jars of jerk. I make a double batch and give him about half.
It’s a good arrangement.
A food processor and a juicer help the process. Here’s the
recipe. It makes a standard food
processor pitcher full. After the first
two ingredients mix up each next thing as you go, making it smooth.
1 5/8 cup vegetable
oil. Any
bland oil except olive Canola, corn, whatever.
2 ½ cups fresh squeezed lime juice I think it’s worth it to halve limes
and juice them instead of buying bottled stuff.
Here’s where the juicer really helps.
40 scallions stalks
and all
40 Habaneros Also known as
Scotch Bonnets. I used to cut them and
seed them but you run the risk of getting the heat on your fingers, rubbing your
eye, hurting yourself in all manner of places in all kinds of ways gloves or
not. They’re mean little peppers. Pick
off the stem and throw the thing in whole with the seeds. Yeah, the seeds make it hotter but what the
heck. If you find it unbearable use 35
next time and throw in a poblano or two in their place.
30 cloves of garlic Get
spicy purple garlic if you can.
20 Tbsp. fresh thyme That’s
about a cup and a quarter. If you’re growing your own thyme
that’s a little more than two plants worth, depending on the year of course.
My thyme did well this year because I planted it in a pot near my wife’s
flowers and she kept an eye on it.
Watered it when it was dry. Next
year I’ll grow three. I was a little
short. Strip the leaves off the big
stems with your thumbnail. It’ll make the end of your thumb green for a while
but it comes off.
10 Tbsp. fresh peeled ginger Half a cup more or
less. Forget the fancy gadgets and scrape the
skin off with a teaspoon. Put the skins
on a plate and set it on the counter. It
smells great. Do this after the garlic
and it will take the smell off your hands.
Slice it before you put it in the food processor.
10 Tbsp. dark brown
sugar Or a
half cup packed tight. About the same. Close enough.
20 tsp.
AllSpice Berries That’s
a cup. Not ground allspice, the
berries. I knock them around in the
coffee grinder a few times. Crack a few
in half. You don’t have to. But if you do your coffee will taste
different the next morning. Change is
good.
10 tsp. Kosher Salt Throw it in there.
You’ve just made the marinade. That’s what you dump over your chicken wings
or whatever you choose to flavor with this Jamaican Jerk and keep in the fridge
in a zip lock bag overnight. If you want to make a jerk sauce, for the table,
with or without the marinade, add the following to taste.
Black pepper, with equal
parts vinegar and soy sauce. I don’t
know what to tell you about amounts here, other than put the pepper in sparingly,
starting with a quarter teaspoon, then add glugs, or dribs and drabs of soy and
vinegar till you like it. Don’t make it
too runny or drown it out with the soy.
I can this marinade in pint jars. A jar does a nice size bunch of wings. Once it is canned it’s good till you make the next batch, but loses heat slowly after
six months. Even then it’s pretty hot.
Canning the stuff is not nearly as hard as it sounds. Heat up the jerk and put it in hot mason
jars, turn the ring and close the lid half tight, put it in a deep pan just
covered with lightly boiling water. Keep
the jars in there about 10 minutes and take them out with tongs. Put them on your counter on a dish
towel. The lids will pop. When they pop you know you’re good. Take the lids off when they’re cool and you’ll
find yourself with a future enhanced by the chance of spicy tasty food.
Consider a cold beer. Hang out by the Weber. Listen to reggae. Say “Yah, mon” to someone you love. Enjoy.
I'm going to share this with my Dad. There is nothing he likes better than really hot sauce. It may inspire next year's garden, too. Thanks for another great story, Dave.
ReplyDeleteI have a recipe for Asian chili paste I could share with you or him. He might like that too. Don't let me forget to pass it on.
ReplyDelete