Jamaican Jerk Chicken with Edamame, peas and rice recipe.

Jamaican Jerk Sauce is a fiery marinade, that works great with chicken and pork, I'm sure it would be great with Rabbit and prawns too.  Its primary ingredients are Scotch Bonnet Chillies (one of the hottest chilli peppers on the Scoville Scale) and Allspice (Pimento in Jamaica). Originally Jerk Chicken or Pork was smoked over wood charcoal, Now it is usually grilled. 

Scotch Bonnets can now be found in a larger supermarkets (Tesco in the UK recently have started selling them), also in Indian food shops and the plants are readily available in garden centres. You can use Habanero chillies instead, but Scotch bonnets are more fruity. Likewise you can double up on the peas, if you cannot find Edamame for the rice. Edamame are immature soybeans, green like peas, popular in Asia, most health food shops and chinese supermarkets stock frozen ones these days.

If you do not like your food hot, and I mean hot, I'd give this recipe a miss, but the flavours are intensive and like no other, you can add less Scotch Bonnets, but that kinda defeats the purpose of the recipe. The longer you marinate the meat, the richer the flavour.

Beware Scotch Bonnets are a very potent  100,000 - 350,000 scoville units, for a comparison most jalapeño peppers have a rating of 2,500 - 8,000, so please do wear rubber gloves, and treat them with care, avoid scratching ANY sensitive areas whilst preparing them.

This chicken is great eaten cold the next day too, as is the rice.

Jerk sauce marinade ingredients 
3 Spring Onions, roughly chopped
4 large garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 small white onion, chopped roughly
2 to 4 fresh Scotch bonnet or habanero chillies, stemmed and seeds removed (wear gloves!!)
Juice from 3-4 limes
2 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon soft light brown sugar
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
1 teaspoon of freshly grated or crushed ginger
3/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons freshly ground allspice
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
Chicken
Legs, Drumsticks and wings 3-4 of each 

Edamame, peas and rice ingredients
2 tablespoons of sunflower or peanut oil

2 onions, finely sliced

2 large garlic cloves chopped finely

1 tablespoon of freshly grated ginger

1 heaped teaspoon of ground turmeric 

450g of cooked rice ( I used Basmati)

100g of Edamame Beans, removed from their pods

100g of Frozen peas.

Salt & Pepper to season

1. Place all the marinade ingredients into a blender or food processor and blitz until smooth, make sure the lid is secured as any splashed into your eyes will not be a pleasant feeling.

2. Put the required amount of chicken into an appropriate sized sealable freezer bag, add enough marinade to cover each piece, and scrunch the bag a few times to make sure the chicken is well coated.

2. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, over night is best.

3. Cook the chicken for at least 50 minutes at 180°c, the marinade should be black in parts, as pictured, check that chicken is cooked thoroughly. Remove from oven and Rest the chicken for 10 minutes under some lose foil.

4. Heat a work or large frying pan until hot, but not smoking, as this will burn the onion before its cooked, heat the oil and throw in the onions, stir them for 4-5 minutes until just turning brown.

5. Add the garlic, ginger and seasoning to the pan, stir for another minute, then add the turmeric, mix well to combine.

6. Add the pre-cooked rice to the pan and the Edamame and peas, stir fry for another 2-3 minutes until the rice is piping hot and all grains are yellow. Check seasoning and serve, with the chicken placed on top.

Pan fried pork loin served with hash brown and leeks with pancetta.

I managed to grab myself eight boneless pork loins for £3 today, so had a look in my fridge and cupboards to see what I had, and this is what sprang to mind. The only thing that took any time was the hash browns, the rest is a ten minute cook! I have had a couple of requests, and I think this will suit them both, one request was for a Valentines recipe, I think this would suitably impress any of your chosen Valentines, and also my Welsh banter boy wanted some leek recipes. BINGO!
The hash browns can be cooked in advance and then heated up in a little oil in a frying pan, just do not brown them up so much in the fryer! They are great with a poached egg on top too. =)

Serves 2, with extra hash browns for brunch!
Ingredients
Hash Browns

• 3 medium sized maris piper potatoes. (Makes 5-6 hash browns.)
• Salt
• Vegetable oil for frying the hash browns.

Leek and Panchetta.

• 3 medium sized leeks, chopped into 1cm circles.
• 3 slices of pancetta or bacon, chopped roughly.
• 1 teaspoon of fresh rosemary
• 1 clove of garlic.
• large knob of butter
• salt and pepper to taste.
• 1 tablespoon of whisky or bourbon.

• 2 boneless pork loins
• olive oil and a knob of butter for frying.

1. Start by preparing the hash browns. Pre-heat oven to 180c. Place the 3 potatoes on a baking tray and cook in the oven for 30-35 minutes, turning half way so that the skin does not brown too much on the bottom. They want to be firm, not cooked all the way, so that they are too soft to grate.
2. Remove from oven and allow to cool a little. Peel the potatoes using a knife, the skin should just come off easy, I hold the potato in a clean tea towel, as they are pretty hot. Then using a cheese grater, grate the potatoes into a bowl, using long strokes to get long pieces of potato. Add some salt to the bowl and gently stir.
3. Using a ramekin or round cookie cutter, press a large tablespoon of the potato into it quite firmly (they want to be around 1.5-cm deep, then turn out onto a plate, repeat this process until all your potato is used up. Place the plate in the fridge so they can firm up, which takes around half an hour, this prevents them from falling to pieces in the hot fat.
4. Meanwhile heat some olive oil and a knob of butter in a pan over a medium heat, until the butter has melted, season the pork loins and add to the pan, cook on both side for around 5 minutes or until cooked through, I find that if you baste the pork a few times with the juices and butter, they stay more moist. When cooked, remove from pan and rest on a plate whilst you do the final steps. Leave the juices in the pan for step 6.
5. Heat a deep fat fryer to 180c and add 2 of the hash browns cook for 5 minutes turning them over once or until they are golden and crisp, remove from the fat and drain on a paper towel. (if you do not have a deep fat fryer, you can use a saucepan)
6. Whilst the hash brown are cooking, in the same pan that the pork was cooked, add a little more butter and gently fry the leeks and garlic until they soften a little, then add the rosemary and bacon, cook until the bacon is crisp, then add seasoning and finally the special ingredient, that makes hell of a difference, whiskey, cook for a further minute.
7. Serve by spooning the leeks and pancetta into the middle of the plate, place the loin on top, then the delicious golden-crisp hash brown. Sprinkle the hash brown with a little more salt, and tuck in!