Jerk Chicken (Jamie Oliver’s Recipe)

I love Jamie Oliver and his recipes. He has always been my culinary inspiration. I love watching him cook food with so much passion, ease and love. Lately I’m watching his new series “Comfort Food” and loving it. This recipe is not part of that series though,

I had loads of chicken drumsticks in the fridge which I wanted to cook in a different way that would tingle my tastebuds. I found this recipe online and thought I would give it a go. I’m a sucker for hot food and also wanted to try allspice berries. I’ve heard of Jamaican Jerk Chicken but never tried it before. So I was pretty excited to try it. There were few different recipes for Jerk Chicken but I settled for this one.

It was superyum. I will definitely make this dish again with an authentic recipe as I loved the heat and the spiciness of this dish.

Ingredients
8 Chicken drumsticks
2 tablespoons of allspice berries powder
2 tablespoons of chilli flakes
10-12 black peppercorns
1 teaspoon of raw sugar
2 tablespoons of honey
4 jalapeños chillies
Few sprigs of fresh flat parsley
1 sprig of spring onion or scallion
Few sprigs of coriander
4 cloves of garlic
A thumb sized piece of ginger
1/2 lime
Salt to taste
2 tablespoons of oil

For Flatbread
250 grams self-raising Flour
250 grams yoghurt
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 jalapeño chilli, finely sliced

In a mortar and pestle (or blender) pound garlic, ginger, peppercorns and chillies to make a fine paste. Add chopped parsley, coriander, spring and pound it well. Add allspice berries, chilli flakes, honey, sugar and oil and mix it well.

Wash chicken drumsticks and then Slit it in an angle with sharp knife as this will allow the spice rub to penetrate into drumsticks.
Put chicken drumsticks in a big bowl and add spice rub. Wear a food prepping latex gloves (as chillies are very hot and it burns your hand) and rub the spices thoroughly with drumsticks. Leave the marinated chicken for overnight or at least an hour before cooking.

Preheat oven at 200 degree celcius for 5 minutes. I used the grill and fan setting to grill chicken.
Lightly grease oven tray and add marinated chicken drumsticks. Put it in an oven any grill it 20-25 minutes turning it once after first 10 minutes.

For flatbread

Mix flour with baking powder and sift it in a bowl. Add yoghurt and start bringing it all together and knead to make it a fine and soft dough. Rest re dough for 10-15 minutes covered with a tea towel for it to become soft and elastic.

When ready to roll out the rotis, divide the dough into equal parts of 8 round balls.

On a flat surface, dust it with flour and take one ball of dough and roll it out to make round rotis about a centimeter thick. Stick it with sliced jalapeños.

In a hot non stick pan, toast the flatbread on one side and turn when you see tiny bumps. Press it gently as it will puff up the bread. Remove from heat when cooked.
Repeat the process for remaining balls of dough to make 8 flatbreads.

Serve Jerk Chicken drumsticks with drizzle of a fresh lime and flat breads in a platter.