**The Art of Grilling with Spicy Flair**

As I stood in front of the grill pan, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and trepidation. The aroma of smoke wafted through the air, teasing my senses and building my anticipation. My goal was to create a jerk chicken dish that would transport me back to the vibrant flavors of my heritage.

The first step in achieving this culinary masterpiece was to render out the fat from the skin. I applied some wetness to the pan, ensuring that the meat would sear nicely and develop a crispy texture. The importance of rendering out the fat cannot be overstated; it's what sets a truly exceptional dish apart from a mediocre one.

As I began to cook the chicken, I couldn't help but think about the role of capsaicin in the pepper. This tiny compound is responsible for the heat that we've all come to associate with spicy foods. The heat from the smoke mingled with the capsaicin, creating an intoxicating aroma that wafted through the air and made my mouth water.

The chicken cooked skin side down for three to five minutes, developing a beautiful crust as it went. I could see the sugars starting to caramelize on the surface, transforming the raw meat into something truly exceptional. The key was to start with a good base flavor, one that would allow the other ingredients to shine through.

As the chicken neared its finish, I decided to add a bit more of the marinade paste to seal in the flavors. This was the moment when all the elements came together – the spicy kick from the pepper, the sweetness of the sugar, and the richness of the ginger. It was like a symphony of flavors, each one elevating the others to new heights.

**The Importance of Ventilation**

As I carefully transferred the chicken to the oven, I couldn't help but think about the importance of ventilation in this dish. The pepper's capsaicin had created a potent aroma that lingered long after I'd stopped cooking – a stark reminder of its potency. In order to truly appreciate the flavors, it was essential to breathe through the smoke and let the spices mingle with my senses.

**The Making of Plum Sauce**

With the chicken in the oven, I turned my attention to the plum sauce. Plums offer texture and freshness, while preserve or jam provides the necessary pectin for a smooth, velvety sauce. A tablespoon of vinegar adds a tangy element, while chili flakes provide a subtle kick. Finally, a light drizzle of brown sugar balances out the flavors, rounding out the sweetness.

**The Art of Texture**

As I worked on the plum sauce, I couldn't help but think about the importance of texture in this dish. The crispy skin and juicy chicken would be balanced by the smooth, velvety sauce – a harmonious marriage of textures that would leave me wanting more. In order to achieve this balance, it was essential to have options at my disposal. Honey or agave nectar could replace sugar, while mandolin-sliced garlic added an element of drama to the dish.

**The Result**

As I took my first bite of the finished dish, I knew that all my hard work had paid off. The combination of flavors and textures was nothing short of magic – a perfect balance of spicy, sweet, and savory that left me breathless. It was a dish that would transport me back to my heritage, one that would evoke memories of warm summer days spent around the grill.

In conclusion, the art of grilling with spicy flair requires patience, practice, and a willingness to experiment. By following these simple steps – rendering out fat from skin, cooking chicken low and slow, adding a tangy sauce, and balancing flavors with texture – you too can create a dish that will transport you to a world of culinary delight.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: endon't wear your favorite outfit while you cook this you're gonna smell like a barbecue and maybe you're into that i personally am sometimes but just know that it just it really sticks to you if you ask any migrant jamaican family who lives in a place like brooklyn everyone would have a different spin on their family recipe which is really cool because it means that that recipe really reflects what's coming from the home i wanted to adapt this recipe from a sometimes very involved grilling process that happens outside and bringing it into the home you can actually just do it on a grill setting like this transfer to the oven and still get some of those really essential key flavors to what usually goes into the jerk chicken so you can use any cut you want dark white legs wings it's all fair game i'm using thighs because they're a little bit more resilient when it comes to the cooking process one of the most important steps is to dry brine your meat it imparts so much flavor it also helps to tenderize the piece of meat that you're working on as well so for my dry brine we have a tablespoon of pimento it's also called allspice in jamaica it's mostly referred to as pimento orange zest probably just use whole skin it's one of the ways that you get that sort of tried and true taste of jerk chicken into the actual dish and if you actually give it like a little sniff it kind of just feels like really well-rounded winter spices in jamaica they actually cook the chicken or pork over actual pimento logs and soak their wood chips in water to actually get that smoked pimento flavor into the meat and that's really essential because honestly without pimento you don't really have jerk chicken it won't impart the same flavors it's like a decent amount of orange it's going to add a generous pinch of salt and you don't have to be too scared about over salting when it comes to dry brining it's not just adding sort of like a level of salinity to the chicken it's also pulling out moisture prior to putting the dry brine on the chicken skin i pat it dry with a paper towel just to make sure that any of that residual moisture from the chicken coming to room temperature is pulled out it's going to make sure that it hits the flesh too and if you feel like it can be hit with a little bit more salt i beg you to add it if your gut saying you know what i'm going to go for it it can take it so these look good i'm happy with where they are i'm going to put these in the fridge for 2 to 12 hours then pull it out and then we'll add the jerk paste to the chicken as well so we get into our mee's neck here i have two plums so i'm just gonna actually cut these into the sizes and shapes that i want so we're gonna cut this into half moons depending on what season you're in you might not be able to find plums which is totally fine i would recommend apricot you can also do something with peaches anything that has some level of acidity and sweetness is also your friend for this type of recipe peeling ginger is i'll always just break it down into its sort of parts that are maybe a little more easy to navigate like that and then i'll just take a spoon and i'll peel it with a spoon i like to take the skin off just because it is a little bit more woody you definitely won't die if you eat it but it's not necessarily the best thing so ginger scotch bonnet and black pepper adds a level of heat and it's also creating a complex balance of heat ginger is slightly fruit forward and has very like balanced level of spice to it scotch bonnet is that like high hitting heat it's like when someone sings a song and they do a falsetto it's it's really climbing up to that point it's the sort of like climax of heat for the jerk pace being able to connect with caribbean culture is also to just get a better understanding of the history of its people when you're also just getting to know and learn about someone or a culture that understanding through food is kind of like one of the first uh entry ways into having conversations and to have a dialogue about what it means to be from somewhere and to care about something so i'm just gonna break down my garlic when it comes to our scotch bonnet you want to be very careful to see do not make a dish at some odd hour and then rub your eye because you're tired and then you end up crying in the bathroom for five minutes because you didn't wear gloves or because you didn't realize what you were doing make this very simple for myself and cut the top off and then cut it down just into probably half as fine and add it in there no contact with the seeds and all the spice will transition into the actual paste itself when in jamaica when we would visit i would eat jerk paste out of the bottle every bottle has a different uh marking of how hot it was and i'd love to challenge myself and just see how how hot i could i can manage to to take which maybe is why i'm numb to it now you can kind of see time in jamaica as you might find oregano or rosemary it's that hard herb that kind of helps to add another layer of flavor to whatever you're making last but not least black pepper i'm going to add it to our spice grinder give it a little buzz it was good i have like a fixation on the smell of like a freshly crushed black peppercorn it's like a bouquet of flowers almost it kind of like has this like delicious floralness to it that you don't find when you just have black pressure black pepper that's black pepper that's pre-crushed black prep black pepper that's pre-crushed black pepper that's been crushed um black pepper is great do you want it to become a loose paste we actually want to add that texture onto the chicken thighs themselves smells fiery so we can take this off oh my god it's so hot let's turn my grill pan on we kind of want it to be at like a medium high heat and i'm just gonna get my plums going on the grill with a little bit of oil i'm just gonna put them face down trying to be like very orderly about this typically at home i probably would just like dump it all on but i'm trying to show up for you today what you do want is for a bit of a grill mark to form because we're gonna cook it down a bit further once we add it to the actual sauce in the meantime what we have over here is our chicken this one i let sit for about 12 hours i may have coordinated my shirt with this glove choice i'm not sure but it really you know it seems that way so we're going to go with it i don't want to use all of this because i actually like to lacquer on the paste as i cook to build flavor maybe like a little bit more than half of it maybe like say like 60 75 you can brush it on if you want i like to get into all the cracks and crevices and get under the skin to make sure that it's well coated give it a rub i'm having so many flashbacks at my dad's restaurant 11 years old working on jerk chicken on a grill over coals over wood just making probably like 200 at least 200 pounds of drip chicken a day like let the palms flip the plums the char just adds another layer of flavor that's complementary to jerk chicken itself it's not too far of a jump from your chicken to your plum and it feels like it has harmony and that's that's how you make a well-balanced dish see smoke great sign that our pan is hot and that we have contact with the skin gonna add our chicken to the grill pan we applied some wetness to it so it's actually important that we render that fat out of the skin and the other thing oh god oh just jump back at me once you hit the pan not only is it like hot from the smoke but also the capsaicin or whatever is in the pepper is actually just like filtering through the air so if your lungs don't feel like mine do right now i don't know if you're actually grilling properly these are going to cook skin side down for three to five minutes and all we want to do here is just start to develop color develop those sugars like you talked about oh yeah starting to flip you can actually see that even with the slight bit of brown sugar that we have we already have some color developing the skin itself is getting crispy so i'm just gonna flip it so i'm just oh my god struggling to get the words out because it is so spicy but we have all that heat from the marinade being pulled into the air from the smoke which is exactly what should be happening and then what i'm going to do i'm just going to go ahead and add a bit more of the paste on top was he really wanted to seal in that flavor smoke is going to take me out but honestly for you all it's worth it you know what i think it's oven time for all of our sakes i'm gonna take this grill pan transfer it into the oven and then we're gonna start working on our plum sauce so what did we learn from that moment ventilation is really important and you're just gonna like breathe through just cough through it we're good i think it's time to make a plum sauce plums offer texture and freshness whereas preserve or jam is going to add in that pectin that you need bits of vinegar chili flakes light brown sugar about a tablespoon of sugar before i go any further i'm just going to go ahead and grab my chicken from the oven this is perfect because we're going to want it to rest as the sauce comes together so we've got color we've got body we're looking for a good 165 moment stick it from there uh oh yes nailed it perfect add in our agave you want to use honey you could totally use honey if you wanted to also make your own simple syrup you could also do that as well you have options go with what you know it's going to break down this garlic take it out of its little shell mandolin is just simply for slicing you get even thickness across your cuts i'm really into the garlic slice like a graphic element of the whole dish in the syrup or the sauce itself it's going to start to just kind of turn translucent but you'll still see garlic pieces when you actually apply it to the jerk chicken itself so you can see it's starting to come together i'm just going to go ahead and add my plums yeah you really want your plum to become well coated in the sauce but then also you want to make sure that you leave it on a low enough temperature so that it starts to let out its own moisture i'm gonna go ahead and shave in our ginger microplating is important because you want to have smaller pieces which means that the flavor disappears a bit more this has cooled down a bit you have all those juices that kind of settle so when we cut into it or if you bite into it it doesn't go kind of like leeching out and spilling everywhere and then i'm gonna do is just add the plums on top of that and i feel like it's in a good place and looks delicious and i'm excited to eat it i'd like to thank my grandma and grandpa and aunties and uncles for passing down this iconic recipe that i've obviously put my own spin on today let's see how i did oh my god let me just say that even though we didn't have a grill basically achieving the same level of crispiness and crunchiness and texture developing the combination of the spiciness but also being cut with the sweetness of the plum and also the plum is like juicy it's refreshing i think like perfect balance for this jerk chicken dish the texture of the skin is incredible feels like the perfect nostalgic vacation meal it's fruit forward it's got spice it's got sweetness it's also bright honestly one of my favorite things to eat and i would recommend that you try it too at home have the summer of your life grilling indoors no matter what season it is and don't be don't be scared to grill it in your house it's totally possible we just did it i'm having so many restaurant flashbacks being like will anyone just bring me a glass of water at some point i don't know is that too much to ask for of a of a child or learning about it ohdon't wear your favorite outfit while you cook this you're gonna smell like a barbecue and maybe you're into that i personally am sometimes but just know that it just it really sticks to you if you ask any migrant jamaican family who lives in a place like brooklyn everyone would have a different spin on their family recipe which is really cool because it means that that recipe really reflects what's coming from the home i wanted to adapt this recipe from a sometimes very involved grilling process that happens outside and bringing it into the home you can actually just do it on a grill setting like this transfer to the oven and still get some of those really essential key flavors to what usually goes into the jerk chicken so you can use any cut you want dark white legs wings it's all fair game i'm using thighs because they're a little bit more resilient when it comes to the cooking process one of the most important steps is to dry brine your meat it imparts so much flavor it also helps to tenderize the piece of meat that you're working on as well so for my dry brine we have a tablespoon of pimento it's also called allspice in jamaica it's mostly referred to as pimento orange zest probably just use whole skin it's one of the ways that you get that sort of tried and true taste of jerk chicken into the actual dish and if you actually give it like a little sniff it kind of just feels like really well-rounded winter spices in jamaica they actually cook the chicken or pork over actual pimento logs and soak their wood chips in water to actually get that smoked pimento flavor into the meat and that's really essential because honestly without pimento you don't really have jerk chicken it won't impart the same flavors it's like a decent amount of orange it's going to add a generous pinch of salt and you don't have to be too scared about over salting when it comes to dry brining it's not just adding sort of like a level of salinity to the chicken it's also pulling out moisture prior to putting the dry brine on the chicken skin i pat it dry with a paper towel just to make sure that any of that residual moisture from the chicken coming to room temperature is pulled out it's going to make sure that it hits the flesh too and if you feel like it can be hit with a little bit more salt i beg you to add it if your gut saying you know what i'm going to go for it it can take it so these look good i'm happy with where they are i'm going to put these in the fridge for 2 to 12 hours then pull it out and then we'll add the jerk paste to the chicken as well so we get into our mee's neck here i have two plums so i'm just gonna actually cut these into the sizes and shapes that i want so we're gonna cut this into half moons depending on what season you're in you might not be able to find plums which is totally fine i would recommend apricot you can also do something with peaches anything that has some level of acidity and sweetness is also your friend for this type of recipe peeling ginger is i'll always just break it down into its sort of parts that are maybe a little more easy to navigate like that and then i'll just take a spoon and i'll peel it with a spoon i like to take the skin off just because it is a little bit more woody you definitely won't die if you eat it but it's not necessarily the best thing so ginger scotch bonnet and black pepper adds a level of heat and it's also creating a complex balance of heat ginger is slightly fruit forward and has very like balanced level of spice to it scotch bonnet is that like high hitting heat it's like when someone sings a song and they do a falsetto it's it's really climbing up to that point it's the sort of like climax of heat for the jerk pace being able to connect with caribbean culture is also to just get a better understanding of the history of its people when you're also just getting to know and learn about someone or a culture that understanding through food is kind of like one of the first uh entry ways into having conversations and to have a dialogue about what it means to be from somewhere and to care about something so i'm just gonna break down my garlic when it comes to our scotch bonnet you want to be very careful to see do not make a dish at some odd hour and then rub your eye because you're tired and then you end up crying in the bathroom for five minutes because you didn't wear gloves or because you didn't realize what you were doing make this very simple for myself and cut the top off and then cut it down just into probably half as fine and add it in there no contact with the seeds and all the spice will transition into the actual paste itself when in jamaica when we would visit i would eat jerk paste out of the bottle every bottle has a different uh marking of how hot it was and i'd love to challenge myself and just see how how hot i could i can manage to to take which maybe is why i'm numb to it now you can kind of see time in jamaica as you might find oregano or rosemary it's that hard herb that kind of helps to add another layer of flavor to whatever you're making last but not least black pepper i'm going to add it to our spice grinder give it a little buzz it was good i have like a fixation on the smell of like a freshly crushed black peppercorn it's like a bouquet of flowers almost it kind of like has this like delicious floralness to it that you don't find when you just have black pressure black pepper that's black pepper that's pre-crushed black prep black pepper that's pre-crushed black pepper that's been crushed um black pepper is great do you want it to become a loose paste we actually want to add that texture onto the chicken thighs themselves smells fiery so we can take this off oh my god it's so hot let's turn my grill pan on we kind of want it to be at like a medium high heat and i'm just gonna get my plums going on the grill with a little bit of oil i'm just gonna put them face down trying to be like very orderly about this typically at home i probably would just like dump it all on but i'm trying to show up for you today what you do want is for a bit of a grill mark to form because we're gonna cook it down a bit further once we add it to the actual sauce in the meantime what we have over here is our chicken this one i let sit for about 12 hours i may have coordinated my shirt with this glove choice i'm not sure but it really you know it seems that way so we're going to go with it i don't want to use all of this because i actually like to lacquer on the paste as i cook to build flavor maybe like a little bit more than half of it maybe like say like 60 75 you can brush it on if you want i like to get into all the cracks and crevices and get under the skin to make sure that it's well coated give it a rub i'm having so many flashbacks at my dad's restaurant 11 years old working on jerk chicken on a grill over coals over wood just making probably like 200 at least 200 pounds of drip chicken a day like let the palms flip the plums the char just adds another layer of flavor that's complementary to jerk chicken itself it's not too far of a jump from your chicken to your plum and it feels like it has harmony and that's that's how you make a well-balanced dish see smoke great sign that our pan is hot and that we have contact with the skin gonna add our chicken to the grill pan we applied some wetness to it so it's actually important that we render that fat out of the skin and the other thing oh god oh just jump back at me once you hit the pan not only is it like hot from the smoke but also the capsaicin or whatever is in the pepper is actually just like filtering through the air so if your lungs don't feel like mine do right now i don't know if you're actually grilling properly these are going to cook skin side down for three to five minutes and all we want to do here is just start to develop color develop those sugars like you talked about oh yeah starting to flip you can actually see that even with the slight bit of brown sugar that we have we already have some color developing the skin itself is getting crispy so i'm just gonna flip it so i'm just oh my god struggling to get the words out because it is so spicy but we have all that heat from the marinade being pulled into the air from the smoke which is exactly what should be happening and then what i'm going to do i'm just going to go ahead and add a bit more of the paste on top was he really wanted to seal in that flavor smoke is going to take me out but honestly for you all it's worth it you know what i think it's oven time for all of our sakes i'm gonna take this grill pan transfer it into the oven and then we're gonna start working on our plum sauce so what did we learn from that moment ventilation is really important and you're just gonna like breathe through just cough through it we're good i think it's time to make a plum sauce plums offer texture and freshness whereas preserve or jam is going to add in that pectin that you need bits of vinegar chili flakes light brown sugar about a tablespoon of sugar before i go any further i'm just going to go ahead and grab my chicken from the oven this is perfect because we're going to want it to rest as the sauce comes together so we've got color we've got body we're looking for a good 165 moment stick it from there uh oh yes nailed it perfect add in our agave you want to use honey you could totally use honey if you wanted to also make your own simple syrup you could also do that as well you have options go with what you know it's going to break down this garlic take it out of its little shell mandolin is just simply for slicing you get even thickness across your cuts i'm really into the garlic slice like a graphic element of the whole dish in the syrup or the sauce itself it's going to start to just kind of turn translucent but you'll still see garlic pieces when you actually apply it to the jerk chicken itself so you can see it's starting to come together i'm just going to go ahead and add my plums yeah you really want your plum to become well coated in the sauce but then also you want to make sure that you leave it on a low enough temperature so that it starts to let out its own moisture i'm gonna go ahead and shave in our ginger microplating is important because you want to have smaller pieces which means that the flavor disappears a bit more this has cooled down a bit you have all those juices that kind of settle so when we cut into it or if you bite into it it doesn't go kind of like leeching out and spilling everywhere and then i'm gonna do is just add the plums on top of that and i feel like it's in a good place and looks delicious and i'm excited to eat it i'd like to thank my grandma and grandpa and aunties and uncles for passing down this iconic recipe that i've obviously put my own spin on today let's see how i did oh my god let me just say that even though we didn't have a grill basically achieving the same level of crispiness and crunchiness and texture developing the combination of the spiciness but also being cut with the sweetness of the plum and also the plum is like juicy it's refreshing i think like perfect balance for this jerk chicken dish the texture of the skin is incredible feels like the perfect nostalgic vacation meal it's fruit forward it's got spice it's got sweetness it's also bright honestly one of my favorite things to eat and i would recommend that you try it too at home have the summer of your life grilling indoors no matter what season it is and don't be don't be scared to grill it in your house it's totally possible we just did it i'm having so many restaurant flashbacks being like will anyone just bring me a glass of water at some point i don't know is that too much to ask for of a of a child or learning about it oh\n"