The History of Jerk Chicken

Jerk chicken is one of the most iconic chicken dishes in the world. From it’s beginnings in Jamaica, it has spread all around the world with the Jamaican diaspora. It is now hugely popular insurrounding Caribbean countries as well as the United States, United Kingdom and many more countries. It has a long history shaped by immigration patters and historic events in the region.

The earliest forms of jerk cooking com from the indigenous Taíno people of Jamaica. It was initially a form of cooking that saw meat smoked and grilled. This was then seasoned with allspice (pimento berries) and peppers. During the transatlantic slave trade, the Spanish and British brought over many slaves from Africa. They soon became the predominant population, and many found opportunities to escape plantations and flee to the mountains. Here they became known as the Maroons and encountered the original population, and adopted jerk cooking as part of their own culinary tradition. This article from the Smithsonian is a great read on the history of jerk!

Modern Jerk Chicken

Modern jerk cooking retains a few key elements from this. The idea of smoking and grilling the meat comes from the requirement to cook tougher cuts of meat and make them tender. This is similar to most forms of BBQ in the world in it’s purpose. It was also originally cooked in underground smoke pits. This was to avoid open fires and smoke plumes that could reveal their locations. Typically meats in the early days of jerk cooking would be local game meats like wild boar etc. Over time chicken became the most popular meat as it became an important farming animal on the island.

Jerk seasoning still retains it’s core elements of allspice and chilli pepper, predominantly the scotch bonnet. The scotch bonnet pepper is a small, fiery pepper cultivar from the habanero family. It not only delivers heat, but packs so much flavour! It is a rather fruity tasting chilli, and is essential to the jerk flavour. Modern jerk now makes use of a lot more flavourings as well. These typically include thyme, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and soy sauce. Collectively this gives a sweet, earthy, smoky and spicy profile that is truly delicious!

Spatchcocking a Chicken

Spatchcocking is a fantastic technique for cooking a whole chicken in less time. When doing it on the BBQ, this is really important to ensure you can cook the chicken fully without burning it. The process of spatchcocking involves removing the spine from the bird. This allows you to then lay the chicken out flat. As a result, much more of the chicken can be exposed to direct heat. This also means that the overall distance for the heat to carry through the bird is reduced. Spatchcocking is not only useful for cooking over coals, but also in the oven for roasting.

First, flip the chicken over. You will be able to see the chickens tail, and this will show you where the spine is. Using a pair of sturdy, sharp kitchen scissors, cut up along one side of the spine.This required shearing through the ribs. If you are new to this it may feel uncomfortable but trust the method, it will not damage the meat.

You can then make the same cut up the other side, and then remove the spine entirely.

Finally, flip the bird over again, spreading out the legs. Using your palm, give a firm press on the breast to crack the sternum and lay the chicken flat.

Setting Up Your BBQ

Even though the chicken will now cook faster, you cannot cook it oer direct heat. This will still lead to significant burning. To get around this, we need to set up the BBQ for indirect heat. This basically means you want to set up all your coals on one side of the grill, and cook on the other.

The chicken should be laid out on the indirect side, and then cooked with the lid on the BBQ. This lets the heat rise inside to make more of an oven set up. The smoke from the coals will be captured under the lid and give the chicken that iconic flavour!