Jerk Marinade (Page 933)

RECIPE #794

• Date: Saturday, July 19, 2008 -- 8pm
• Location: Hartsville, SC
• Kitchen: My parents' house
• Fellow Chef: Matty
• Dining Companion: Terry and Teri
• Recipe Rating: A-
  

This recipe was the marinade for some tasty grilled chicken I made at my parents' house a few weeks ago (I don't own a grill, so I use whatever opportunities arise to take advantage of those people I know who do!). This marinade was not so cute looking (see above) but it was tasty! I marinated the pieces of chicken for 24 hours before grilling and this marinade really permeated the meat with yummy jerk seasonings. The recipe had quite a few ingredients (scallions, garlic, onion, habanero chiles, lime juice, soy sauce, olive oil, salt, brown sugar, fresh thyme, allspice, pepper, nutmeg, and cinnamon) but the directions were pretty simple: "Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth." The addition of soy sauce in a traditionally Jamaican marinade seemed a little suspect to me, but The Book informed me that there is a fair-sized Chinese community in Jamaica. Anyway, despite my skepticism it must have worked because this marinade had an excellent balance of flavors. It was spicy without being overwhelming, and the allspice gave it that wonderful flavor that made it "jerk" rather than just "spicy." While we used this marinade in a chicken dish (which will be my next post) I can imagine that it would also do some seriously delicious things for pork.

This marinade is the marinade from this recipe.

July is coming to a close and August is nearly upon us, which means that my travel craziness for the summer is about to begin! I have traveled only minimally this summer (Chicago in May, Denmark/Germany in June, South Carolina in July), but August is going to be a little nuts. This week my special gentleman and I are packing up his apartment. Next Monday morning we will load it all in a mini-van and drive it to East Lansing, Michigan. Tuesday morning we will unload the truck into a storage unit, where his stuff will stay until he moves to East Lansing in Fall 2009. Then we will drive my car (which we are towing from Boston to East Lansing behind the truck) down to Bloomington, where we will stay for one day so we can unload some of my special gentleman's stuff and I can move offices in the department. Then I will fly back to Boston, so I can drive to Montreal for Vero's wedding. My special gentleman, meanwhile, will drive from Indiana up to Northern Michigan for Russ' wedding. After the weddings (which are on the same day...) we will both fly to California, where he will go to Berkeley for a conference and I will go to Stanford to see Em, Brian, and Sam. We will spend a week and a half in California, and then fly back to Michigan. Hopefully we will find my car somewhere in Michigan (wherever Matty left it when he flew to California) and drive up to Northern Michigan for Brad and Deniz's wedding. After their wedding, we will drive down to Bloomington where I will settle in a bit before the semester starts. Crazy, no? It's a good thing both math research and cooking can be done many places because otherwise I don't know how I would make any progress on work or my project!