The Journey Called Food.

My travels around the world has taken me to some wonderful places with absolutely brilliant food, be it street food or some top restaurant food, so it is quite natural that the first blog I write about the cuisines of the world, would be about the beautiful Caribbean islands. In this interesting journey I have met beautiful and genuine people, heard great music, had good food and have enjoyed the warm seas.

My journey to this amazing island brings me fond memories of its warm turquoise waters, colorful carnivals, the chocolate beauties, steel pans and of course the rum and coconut punches. It is here on a walk around Montego bay that I came across this simple jerk chicken recipe, cooked on an open wood fire, the man I befriended let me into the secrets of a perfect jerk which I use today from pulled pork to jerk roast to burgers.

There is a basic and non-negotiable rule to jerk and that is, it has to be spicy – i.e. use only scotch bonnet there is no substitute to that. Secondly let the marinade soak in the meat, I let the meat soak for at least 48 hours in my refrigerator and finally never ever, cook it in your oven, jerk chicken is not complete without its “soul” – charcoal and wood smoke. The one I had was smoked on pimento tree wood that’s where the allspice berries come from.

Bhanu and me have perfected this recipe and we now share it with you, and as always no journey to Jamaica is never complete without a trip to the blue mountains, where the air of strong coffee lingers on, so to add to our jerk chicken we also give you a blue mountain chocolate brownie with dark chocolate sauce coffee ganache, and when your done lickin’ your fingers with the jerk chicken with the left over’s try our jerk roll, so “nyam” (eat) your “bickle” (food) and “labrish” (gossip) with friends. Bon Appetit!