BBQ Jerk Chicken with Mango Salsa
Donal's Notes
The wonderful thing about marinating meats is that you can prepare them so far in advance. Pop the meat in the marinade in a resealable bag in the fridge overnight and the flavours will intensify. Marinated meat can also be frozen. This jerk chicken marinade is quite quirky and has lots of interesting flavours like lime juice, cinnamon, honey and ginger. It sounds like an odd combination but makes for many layers of flavours and served straight from the BBQ with this mango salsa, it’s total sunshine food.
Jerk spices:
For the chicken:
For the roast potatoes:
For the salsa:
2 x Chopping board
Large bowl
Tongs
Kitchen scissors
Chopping knife
Microplane
Roasting tray
Meat thermometer
Instructions
1
First make the jerk dry spice blend as some of this will also be used to roast the potatoes. In a small bowl stir together the allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, oregano and fresh thyme leaves, salt and pepper. Set aside 2 tbsp of this for the potatoes.
2
Break down the chicken into pieces, by removing the spine using a sharp knife or kitchen scissors. Lay the chicken out flat and remove the legs.
3
Cut in half lengthways and then remove the breasts. Remove the wings from the breasts.
4
Next, on a clean chopping board, prep the marinade ingredients. Deseed and finely chop the scotch bonnet chillies.
5
Peel and finely grate the garlic and ginger.
6
Add the chilli, garlic and ginger to a large bowl along with the lime zest and juice, honey, ketchup and the jerk spice mix and give everything a good mix.
7
Get the chicken pieces in there and mix well to coat. Cover and leave in the fridge to marinate for at least 2 hours or overnight if you have the time. Don’t forget to remove the chicken from the fridge 30 minutes before you are ready to cook, to allow the chicken to come up to room temperature.
8
Meanwhile prep the salsa by peeling and chopping the mango into small chunks. Dice the cucumber.
9
Finely chop the spring onion. Deseed and finely chop the chilli.
10
Add the mango, cucumber, spring onion and chilli to a bowl along with the lime juice, olive oil, sea salt and pepper.
11
Preheat the oven to 180C and prep the roast fingerling potatoes. Slice the potatoes in half lengthways. Peel and bash the garlic with the side of a knife.
12
Add the potatoes to a roasting tray along with the garlic, reserved spice mix, olive oil and plenty or sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Give everything a good toss and roast in the oven for 35-40 minutes, turning halfway through cooking until golden tender.
13
Remove the chicken from the fridge 30 minutes before you are ready to cook. Get the BBQ (or griddle pan if you’re inside) to a medium high heat and cook the chicken pieces for 15 minutes turning only once during the cooking time, until the chicken is completely cooked through. The different pieces will take slightly different cooking times so a good way to check if they are cooked is to insert a meat thermometer at the thickest part and check that it registers 82.2˚C for drumsticks and thighs and 73.9˚C for breasts.
14
Mix the coriander through the salad just when you're ready to serve.
15
Serve the chicken with the mango salsa and the roast fingerling potatoes!
