4 Levels of Jerk Chicken: Amateur to Food Scientist

[cleaver thudding]

[upbeat music]

Hi, I'm John and I'm a level one chef.

My name is Wiz and I am a level two chef.

What's up my guys? I'm Chef Darian.

I've been a chef for 13 years.

I came here from Jamaica 13 years ago.

[upbeat music]

The perfect jerk chicken is charred all around,

very, very crispy.

I'm thinking of Jamaica, bold flavors.

Scotch Bonnet pepper, the thyme, the garlic,

the onion, the pimento, all those flavors of the island.

That's what make jerk jerk.

[bright music]

I have never tried to make my own jerk marinade.

An essential part of jerk chicken is the marinade.

I'm gonna show you guys the process.

My mom showed me how to make the jerk

marinade back in Jamaica.

If you don't have the important key pieces,

you are not gonna have a good marinade.

I mean, if you could list off the spices here,

it's just way too many and I don't, I don't have all that.

So I'm going to start with my onion, chopping it

and throwing it inside of my blender.

Adding some ginger too.

So first I'm gonna grind my cinnamon sticks.

All spice berry. Got some black peppercorn.

So you want to grind yourself

so you don't get any big chunks in the marinade,

because as you can see, cinnamon stick stuff,

you don't wanna bite into that.

That's not fun.

[grinder whirring]

First, I'm gonna cut the garlic, nothing fancy.

Everything I do is rough cuts.

Now the jerk marinade hot and spicy, and it is delicious

in small quantities.

I've learned to not use the whole bottle of jerk marinade

for your jerk chicken.

I wanna feel a punch,

like literally punching me in my face.

And in the Caribbean we do Scotch Bonnet peppers,

giving you that extra kick.

I'm gonna go ahead and throw in my all spice.

It's a pimento berry,

and I think that all spice is actually the number one

component when it comes to putting in your jerk chicken.

So I'm gonna add this to my blender right now.

Perfect.

I'm adding my scallions. Scallions

Onions right here.

I got a couple spices here. Nothing crazy fancy here.

Just smoked paprika and some ground

ginger. Ginger.

Love fresh ginger. Got some garlic right here.

You don't even up the chop it. Throw it right in there.

I'm gonna add also my thyme in here. And now I eyeball.

And when you're in the Caribbean,

we don't have spoon measures.

We literally talk to our ancestors

and then we just drop it in.

She said that's okay.

Some soy sauce.

My secret ingredient right here, rum, dark rum.

You just add that depth of flavor. I love it.

So rum is not traditionally in jerk marinades.

I grew up next to the rum factory back in Jamaica, right?

So my mom is like, oh, but we put some rum in our jerk

marinade to make it different and extra special.

Now I am going to add, please don't kill me.

Liquid smoke. It's less than 20 degrees in New York City.

I'm not going outside. I'm not going on a grill.

When you ask me what is in here,

I'll say pimento wood chips.

Scotch Bonnet.

This is what brings the heat. The jerk.

A little go a long way, but I like mine nice

and spicy, fresh thyme.

I've got some oil. We got the nutmeg.

And I'm also gonna add some browning inside of here too,

which makes it nice and caramelized inside of the oven.

It's literally just sugar water

and a little bit of like chemicals and stuff.

And lastly, the honey cuts through the saltiness

and spiciness.

Add in a pinch of salt.

And I just gotta mix it up before I add the chicken.

Take it away.

[blender whirring]

Oh yeah, it smells really good already.

It smells magical. Remind me of back home.

That's the color that you wanna see.

Taste this bad boy. Wow.

Yeah, that is jerk. Woo. I'm add a little salt

And I'm going to go ahead and do my dry seasoning.

So I like to use all purpose seasoning along

with some salt and black pepper.

Three things. And that's it.

And this is my hot honey marinade.

All right, time to get to the chicken.

So for my jerk chicken, I chose chicken thighs,

bone in, skin on.

Don't let anybody tell you different.

I am a leg quarter girl through and through.

This is what I grew up seeing. Thigh and a leg.

In Jamaica, you see entire bird, right?

You can't have jerk chicken without a chicken.

Got this beautiful bird right here.

So first cut it in half, right down the chest.

Some people like take the backbone out.

It's like wasting food to me. So I'm gonna leave it in.

The first thing that I wanna do is wash my chicken.

I'm mixing acid with some water.

It's pretty much just a brine.

So I'm poking some holes inside of here just

so when I do my brine, I'm getting all of

that acid inside of there.

So I'm going to squeeze some lime.

And I'm not just squeezing it on there, I'm massaging it.

I'm getting in the bone, I'm getting in the meat,

helping out with making it super juicy, super tender,

giving the chicken what it needs.

I'm gonna pour this beautiful marinade over it to get all

of that flavor.

Mm, smells so good.

I throw in white distilled vinegar

and then I'm gonna add in my water.

It's gonna chill out for about 15 minutes.

So I went ahead and washed away all of the brine

that I had inside of my bowl.

To make it neat and keep it cute,

I'm gonna throw it in the

Ziploc bag. Put it in the Ziploc bag.

Use tongs.

I'm gonna throw my seasonings in there,

make sure it gets into all of the crevices.

Then I'm gonna dump my marinade

in the bag with the chicken.

The jerk seasoning is gonna balance out the saltiness from

my dry marinade.

And then, I don't know, get it all over everywhere.

I'm gonna try to get it as under the skin

as much as possible too.

I think that's a big factor here.

If you can pick up outta the skin right here

and you're just gonna stuff some of that marinade in there.

There's a lot of massaging going on in here.

It's getting a whole lot of love. You hear me?

This looks good to me.

I'm gonna cover this up for at least 24 hours.

All right, this is gonna go in the fridge for 30 minutes,

Let it marinate for two hours, preferably overnight.

And while that's sitting in there,

I'm gonna make my dipping sauce.

All of these combined,

we'll make a cilantro lime dipping sauce.

So this is my Red Stripe barbecue sauce.

You can use any type of beer you come across.

So let's start with scallions.

Three more cloves, I'm gonna get from this garlic.

Love a garlicy flavor.

So essentially I want to mix

my ketchup. Ketchup first-

[Wiz] Along with my jerk seasoning.

Brown sugar.

Love me some brown sugar.

Stir it up, little darling. Stir it up.

I got the jerk spice going in.

You are literally using the same

ingredients for everything.

What'll do next? Maybe avocado.

I'm gonna use half and the other half could make

for a nice avocado toast tomorrow morning.

Let's do the

lime. Lime.

Just to add a bit of flavor.

Olive oil. I love 0% fat yogurt.

It's got that tartness to it

that whole milk yogurt just doesn't have.

Think it'll cut the spiciness nicely.

And lastly, I have cilantro. Gonna put them all in.

So you can use any beer.

But you know we're in Jamaica, so Red Stripe Beers,

that they are the beer of the the island

because it's made in Jamaica.

What we got?

I need to taste it. See if it's good.

Come on man. Yeah, that's money.

I want to cry right now.

Remind me of home man, this is so amazing.

[blender whirring]

Ooh, that's nice.

Citrusy, creamy, can really taste the cilantro

'cause of the stems.

And I think just a tad bit more salt

and I'll be all done with this.

And there you have it.

It is my jerk seasoning, dipping sauce.

Ready for some jerk chicken to be dipped in

There you have my Red Stripe barbecue dipping sauce, man.

Look at that. Simple and delicious.

Can't wait to give it a try.

Got the grill pan. I'm gonna heat this up.

We're gonna go pretty high on it.

We're in a New York City apartment.

There is no grill outside being used,

so that's why I have a half sheet lined with a cooling rack

because I want it to mimic a grill.

I like to set my oven at 375.

I wanna make sure that that high heat is going to make sure

to cook this chicken right and then I'm gonna turn it over.

These are gonna go on both sides,

so it doesn't really matter what side I start on.

So we got 'em all on the grill, sizzling.

Oh god. It's getting smoky over here.

Traditionally, back in Jamaica, they use like pimento wood

to cook the chicken on to get that flavor.

We're not in Jamaica right now, so I'm just gonna smoke

this with the pimento wood chips.

I'm gonna light it up.

So I'm using this smoke gun right now to get

that wood chip onto the chicken.

The chicken is smoking. We're looking good.

We're getting that, mm, that pimento wood chip man.

Bring me back every time.

Mm. Smells so good.

And listen, you're not gonna be able to tell the difference.

I don't think I have any nose hair anymore,

but it's smelling pretty good.

It's pretty spicy.

I'm just gonna leave it for 10 and then I'll give it a flip.

Ho ho. Oh yeah, that is satisfying.

Char achieved.

Now I'm just gonna let the other side cook for

a good 10 minutes.

I've got a nice grill pan heating up right now.

Skin side down first. You gotta crisp that skin up.

Ooh, I love that sizzle.

Love that sizzle baby.

You're looking for like caramelization all over.

Crispy skin. Nice golden brown.

It's gonna take at least four

to five minutes.

Take some temperature.

We're looking for 165. 166.

As close to burnt as possible without actually being burnt.

I'd say this is pretty close to being absolutely burnt.

So here's my chicken.

All I gotta do, plate it up, put some sauce next

to it and I get to eat.

All right, now this looks good.

It looks burnt, but it's not burnt.

Essentially it's just been jerked.

The high concentration levels of the sugar that was inside

of the browning, the Scotch Bonnet, the spices, all

of those things added to the color of my jerk chicken.

Ooh, it looks like jerk chicken, baby.

That's what we're gonna do.

We're just gonna continue turning it, flipping it

until we get the result we're looking for.

So I'm happy with this color.

We're gonna put it in the oven to finish it cooking, right?

I'll see you guys in a few. Let's go.

I'm at the end.

I got the chicken, I got the sauce, I got the cilantro.

Now it's time to plate.

Alright, the moment we all been waiting for.

It's not burnt.

Still juicy. Perfectly golden brown.

Exactly what we're looking for.

Let's pile these up.

And then I have the sauce,

creamy textures with a little bit of citrus.

Side of dipping sauce right here.

Now in Brooklyn, I am used to having it chopped down

with a cleaver.

If you go in Jamaica, you're gonna see a big cleaver

and you're gonna see a angry guy chopping that chicken up.

Get through that bone.

Just getting my pieces in. Ooh, that's beautiful.

Okay. So I got the wing down.

We got the drumsticks and we're just gonna start building.

Serve it with my jerk sauce.

Sauce. I'm gonna pour that in.

Look at this.

Feel like you on vacation yet?

Let's sprinkle some pepper curls. The colors of the island.

I want some color.

I want to make sure

that I am incorporating lime wherever I can.

And cilantro on top.

And there you have it.

My hot honey chicken with a side

of cilantro lime dipping sauce.

And there you have it.

My rendition of jerk chicken.

Here's my jerk chicken, my Red Stripe barbecue sauce.

Let me tell you, my mom would be proud, man.

I can't wait to try it.

[playful music]

Oh yeah, crispy. Let's just talk about the perfection.

Look how juicy this chicken is.

The caramelization in the skin is just perfect.

It's time for us to taste. Mm.

Mm.

Mm, mm, mm.

That's real spicy.

The spice for me is everything.

And so let's try with some sauce.

Think it'll cut the spiciness nicely.

Mm. Hold on.

We can't eat jerk

without dipping it in the sauce.

Dip, dipping action.

Mm-hmm.

Fantastic.

Perfection. It balances out the heat.

It gives you some sweetness and oh my gosh. Just one more.

Remind me of childhood.

When I was kid helping my mom in a

cook shop and she give me my first bite of jerk chicken?

It's taking me back right now.

It looks great. Tastes great.

Very happy with it.

We did our thing. I love it.

Enough of the talking.

I'm just gonna eat this entire thing in the back right now.

See you later.

[dramatic music]

Let's see how each of our three chefs made their spicy,

smoky, and sweet jerk chicken.

[dramatic music]

Wiz used dry rub applied directly

to her dried chicken quarters

after a quick marinade in acidic lime and vinegar.

The acidic components break down some protein

with a tenderizing effect.

Giving the chicken what it needs.

To balance flavors,

she added liquid smoke made from concentrated compounds like

carboneels, acids, and phenolics found in real smoke

in a solution.

It imparts the flavor you would get from

naturally smoking meat, but without all of the time.

the traditional method requires.

When you ask me

what is in here, I'll say pimento wood chips.

Darian made a marinade.

It had warming spices that grow in Jamaica where jerk style

of cooking is famous.

He included Scotch Bonnet peppers,

a stable in Jamaican cuisine, which are between 100,000

and 350,000 scoville units.

[dramatic music]

John used the legs, which are dark meat

because of the presence of myoglobin.

A pigment that makes meat a little bit darker.

Wiz used the quarter, which can be a little bit tough

because it's used for locomotion with the chicken.

So it really benefited from her marinade as well

as her dry rub, which had a tenderizing effect.

Darian used the traditional Jamaican way

of using the whole chicken, which gave you a lot of options

and variations in flavor as well as meat.

[dramatic music]

John made an uncooked cilantro lime dipping sauce.

Capsaicin from chili's is fat soluble, so it interacts

with the fats in the avocado and yogurt in his sauce

to mitigate some of the heat.

Wiz added ketchup to her reserved marinade.

This adds more sweetness and acidity

and viscosity due to the presence of pectin

and polysaccharides in the ketchup.

Darian made a simple, but perfectly balanced

and cooked Jamaican beer barbecue sauce.

His base was sweet and tangy ketchup

with Jamaican pale lager,

which has subtle bitterness and a butterscotch color.

He also added brown sugar.

Love me, some brown sugar And some of his marinade.

He covered all of our tastes in this sauce, salty, sweet,

sour, bitter, umami.

And he even added in spiciness, a trigeminal sensation from

the spicy Scotch Bonnets in his marinade.

[dramatic music]

John grilled his chicken on a pan.

This is a form of conductive heat.

Wiz baked her jerk chicken.

Baking is a combination of radiant

and conductive heat transfer.

Radiant heat transfers energy from a source like coils

or gas in the oven through the air.

When it contacts food, it heats the outside first

and then heat is transferred from molecule

to molecule through conduction.

Darian covered his chicken

and used a smoking gun, which burns real wood chips

and sends the smoke through a tube

to make contact with the chicken.

It expedites the process

and imparts a seriously smoky flavor.

Jerk chicken is delicious no matter

how you add your spice and bake it.

Next time you are in the mood for a hot

and spicy chicken dinner,

we hope you'll take tips from our three fabulous chefs.