I have never understood the Finnish enthusiasm for ready-marinated meat. An industrial neon-orange gunk fools the customer into believing that a piece of carcass well past its best is still worth the full price. I hardly ever buy anything ready-marinated, not counting the occasional high-summer bout of chicken brutale (kettle barbecue out of the car boot, and a meal put together at the roadside with the minimum of equipment). For I can say, without running an fMRI study on the subject, that mixing marinades appeals to the same primitive pleasure centres as messing about with mud did in childhood.
My colleague has cleared out of dismal, wintry New York to visit relatives in Jamaica. With the social control of the workplace gone, it is remarkable how much time turns up for cooking and blogging. So I dug every gingerbread spice out of my cupboards, and a good deal else besides, gave in to a recipe from the internet and set about sloshing together the queen of all marinades, Jamaican jerk sauce. A couple of days ago I stood in our local supermarket turning a two-dollar bottle of jerk marinade over in my hands. The temptation was strong, but it could be overcome. I decided after all to treat myself to cheap aromatherapy and a relaxing mess by making the marinade myself.
The whole trick of jerk is allspice, which grows wild in Jamaica. I read somewhere that the English gave it that name because to them it tasted of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves all at once. Cinnamon and nutmeg still go into this marinade on their own account as well, so it really is the gingerbread spices that come out of the cupboard. Proper jerk would call for a fiery Scotch bonnet chilli. I had bought a fresh chilli from the Korean supermarket by mistake, taking it for a green jalapeño, and when I cut it open it turned out to be about as hot as a mild sweet pepper. I improvised by throwing in a couple of dried chillies from the cupboard.
If Taikinapoika were here, I would have asked him to tip the chicken pieces out of the marinade onto the barbecue. Proper jerk chicken is campfire food, after all, and in Jamaica it is apparently allspice wood that goes on the fire. As I understand it, the chicken is jabbed full of holes with sharp sticks at the marinating stage, so that the delicious flavour gets in as deep as possible. But at this time of year even the Latinos next door give up their barbecue parties on the pavement, so I settled for a low gas oven (150 degrees) and a long braise under foil (90 minutes). The leftover marinade is boiled hard into a sauce. It is worth serving good rice with this, and cubes of fresh mango, on which I would sprinkle the tiniest bit of salt and possibly a hot sauce of the Tabasco type.
Recipe card
Jamaican Jerk Chicken
- Marinating several hours or overnight
- Oven 150 °C
- Braising 90 min under foil
You will need
| 1 tbsp | allspice |
| 1 tbsp | thyme |
| 1 tbsp | sugar |
| 1 1/2 tsp | cayenne pepper |
| 1 1/2 tsp | black pepper |
| 1 1/2 tsp | sage |
| 3/4 tsp | nutmeg |
| 3/4 tsp | cinnamon |
| 6-8 | cloves of garlic, sliced |
| 50 ml | olive oil or rapeseed oil |
| 50 ml | soy sauce |
| 100 ml | wine vinegar + 75 ml water |
| 100 ml | orange juice |
| 1 | lime, juice only |
| 3 | spring onions or 1 leek, thinly sliced |
| 1 | fresh hot chilli pepper, or a couple of peperoncini, or 1-2 dried Thai chillies |
| a large onion, chopped | |
| roughly one bird's worth of unmarinated chicken (I used 8 thigh pieces, but 4 skinless breast fillets would have done just as well) |
Method
- Before you start, check that you have enough wine vinegar. Otherwise the job is annoyingly interrupted by a trip to the shop.
- Mix all the marinade ingredients, that is the list down to the chopped onion, in a large bowl (3 litres or bigger). Enjoy the heady spice fumes and try not to sneeze.
- Plop the skinless chicken pieces into the marinade so that they are submerged. Leave to take on flavour for several hours or overnight.
- Braise the chicken pieces in a low oven (150 degrees) under foil for 90 minutes. Proper jerk chicken is tipped out of the marinade onto a barbecue.
- Bring the leftover marinade to a good boil to make a sauce.
- Serve with good rice and cubes of fresh mango.
This dish swallowed a good deal of time, although most of it was passive waiting while the chicken took on flavour in its liquid or stewed in the oven. The result was a tasty, piquant chicken dish that I would have been thoroughly pleased with, if I did not know what transcendent two-dollar pleasure is to be had from the jerk hut around 145th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, or from the restaurant downstairs, many of whose cooks are Caribbean. The flavour of my concoction did not have as many shades. I also missed the contrast between crisp skin and soft flesh. Such is everyday life under capitalism: cooking ought to be outsourced. Or else next time I will try the marinade from the shop...
2 comments
"En ole ikinä tajunnut suomalaisten innostusta valmismarinoituun lihaan."
Aplodeja! A standing ovation!!
Vihaan markettien lihatiskejä, koska liha- ja kanavalikoima on yleisväriltään lähinnä joko oranssia tai kellertävää. Etenkin broileri myydään "mielenkiintoisissa" marinadeissa: jokainen suupala maistuu ns. settimarinadille ja suolalle. Ja erityisesti raivostuttaa se, että marinoimattomat broilerisuikaleet ovat epämääräisiä, kastikkeen sekaan hajoavia jämäpaloja.
Siksi meillä käytetään usein aikaa siihen, että metsästetään mm. marinoimattomia rintafileitä (jotka eivät kuulu lähistön pikkukauppojen valikoimiin). Kun rintafileen leikkelee suupaloiksi ja antaa sen imeä itseensä makua kastikkeesta, lopputulos on yleensä vähintään syötävä ja useimmiten loistava.
(Sama pätee käytännössä mihin tahansa lihaan tai ruhonosaan. Ja raejuustoon: itse maustamalla lopputulos on aina parempi kuin valmista ostamalla.)
Hei Paola
Kyllä minäkin antaisin kaikkien marinadien kukkia, mutta homman hinta on Suomessa juuri se että marinoimattomasta lihasta tulee harvinaista herrojen herkkua jota pitää lähteä ihan erikseen hakemaan. Ja taas kuolee pala suomalaista ruokakulttuuria. (New Yorkissa asuessa olen ikävöinyt kovasti Suomessakin uhanalaisia ruokia: läskisoosia, tillilihaa ja paistikääryleitä.)
Paikallisia preferenssejä riittää - Meksikon ruokakauppoja viime viikolla kolutessa näkyi kana kauppojen valmisaltaissa olevan järjestään keltaiseksi värjättyä - en tiedä johtuiko rehusta vai väriaineesta. Manhattanilla espanjankieliset naapurimme suosivat vähän tuoreempaa siipikarjaa, lähin viveros-kauppa on parin korttelin päästä ja sieltä voi kanalinnut ostaa elävinä. En ole kokeillut 😉
Miten teet raejuustoa itse? Olen joskus tehnyt ricottaa kotona sitruunamehun avulla. Siitä tuli tosi ihanaa, mutta maitoa hupenee sellaisia määriä että vaatisi kannattaakseen melkein oman lehmän...