Jamaican Jerk Chicken!

I have had the recipe for Jamaican Jerk Chicken in my "recipe box" on AllRecipes for over two years now and just haven't gotten around to making it! However, I decided a few weeks ago that I really wanted to make it since we were at the Brewers game instead of going to Rhythm & Brews when they had their "Jerk" night a few weeks ago.

So, without further ado, Jamaican Jerk Chicken!

The recipe calls for 4 limes (juiced) and a cup of water to put the chicken in. We used 5 limes since a- we have a lot of limes leftover from our Memorial Day BBQ where the featured drink was gin & tonic, and b- we don't have juicer and I don't think squeezing the limes by hand maximizes the amount of lime juice...

The rest of the marinade was made up of allspice, nutmeg, salt, brown sugar, thyme, ground pepper, and ginger. It also called for vegetable oil, but I substituted Natural Grapeseed Oil instead since I have almost a whole bottle of it that I've only used twice. The recipe called for ground allspice, but I only have the whole allspice, but since it gets put in the blender I hardly think it really matters. Blended all that together and then added the chopped onion, chopped green onion, 6 cloves of garlic, and the peppers. The recipe called for habanero peppers but we used jalapeno and serrano peppers instead since habaneros are hella hot! After all that was blended together, it was added to the chicken/lime juice/water and marinaded in the fridge for two hours.

This chicken went on the grill after it was marinaded and only took about 15-20 minutes to grill thoroughly. There was a little marinade leftover so that it could be used to baste the chicken on the grill.

Finally, we served it with a side of basmati rice, since that's what we had in the house, when we make it again I'll probably use a more authentic side such as red beans and rice or anything from Zatarain's. :)

Overall, a great dish. Easy to prepare and easy to cook. Prep time was pretty accurate on the recipe, it took about 20 minutes to prep everything before going into the fridge. 221 calories per serving (about 5 WW points) not including the rice. Even without the habanero peppers, there was a bit of spice in the dish, but nothing outrageous (I can't imagine how hot it would have been with the habaneros, though!). Fun to make, and perfect for a summer day!