EID MUBARAK! We hope you have a blessed day. This Eid is certainly unlike any Eid we’ve ever celebrated as we continue with the lockdown from Covid-19.
It’s not all doom and gloom though, a major part of these celebrations is food! That’s right, after a month of fasting during the holy month of Ramadan, Muslims are now able to eat during the day again. Lockdown may mean we can’t see as much of our family and friends as we’d like, but we can still cook ourselves up a treat!
So, in this special episode of QUIZINE IN QUARANTINE, we’re going to be showing you how to put together three separate, wonderfully meaty dishes! Firstly, some BBQ Jerk Chicken.
The story behind this dish is fascinating. They say the process of jerking meat was triggered by a fusion of cultures between the native Taíno people of the Caribbean and the Maroons (descendents of African slaves shipped to the Caribbean by colonial powers). They say that when the British entered the Caribbean, the previous generation of Spanish colonists fled, the temporary power vacuum provided the opportunity for some slaves to break free. Many escaped to the mountains, where they became the first generation of the Island’s Maroons.
Here the Maroons and Tainos mixed together and merged cooking styles. Some say the Tainos put forward their style of cooking and seasoning and the Maroon introduced the marinade and the cooking pits which led to the birth of Jerk.
We mix this amazing sauce with sweet BBQ and put together some amazing chicken to begin our Eid feast in quarantine!
INGREDIENTS
15 pieces of chicken leg and thigh
2 Scotch bonnet chillies
Handful of chives
1 onion
1 tbsp ginger paste/fresh ginger
4 garlic cloves
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp pepper
Splash of water
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1. Start by preparing your chicken for the barbecue. Keep skin on and make slits in each piece so the chicken absorbs flavour and retains moisture when cooking.
2. Now we make our sauce. Throw scotch bonnet, chives, onion, ginger paste, garlic, nutmeg, salt, black pepper, oregano, a splash of water, soy sauce, brown sugar, olive oil and lemon juice into food processor and blitz!
3. There’s your jerk sauce, be careful, the heat will make you cry!
4. Now add some barbecue sauce to the jerk sauce and blitz some more.
5. Pour sauce all over your chicken. Rub the sauce up good all over and leave to marinate for minimum 30 mins.
6. In the mean time, get the BBQ firing! QuizineTV’s BBQ expert recommends glazing the charcoal with honey, so the food is smoked with a nice aroma. Make sure to not overfill the BBQ with coals as chicken will burn. There should be a good amount of space between hot coals and grills where you place chicken.
7. Now throw the chicken pieces onto the BBQ and cook for approx 40 mins. Make sure to flip the chicken throughout.
8. You will need to constantly glaze your chicken to keep it flavoursome and moist. So now, put together your quick glaze.
9. Throw some Jerk BBQ sauce into bowl, add water and honey and mix. Continually apply this glaze to the chicken whilst it cooks.
10. There you have it, some awesome BBQ Jerk Chicken.