2013 Cooking Club Week 8: Chow's Pulled Jerk Chicken

Background
My history of cooking food is cause for some jokes in the family - when I was 16, my parents were away and I raided the fridge & freezer for some things to eat. I found some burgers, some pasta and some Uncle Ben's Sweet & Sour sauce. While that's the worst case, you get the idea.

The Cooking Club
So, I've been reading and using a good few of the recipes for the last number of years (without posting pics or commenting on thread, for shame!). My partner has commented in recent years that I've been willing to try more adventurous dishes than I, well, used to (homemade pizza, Chilli, Mars Bar Treats, Chicken & Chorizo, pulled pork, flapjacks etc.), and even cooked for her parents (thanks Bazmo*).

So, here I was thinking 'oh crap, what have I got myself in for' when it actually came to doing a recipe myself! After some soul (and internet) searching, I thought I'd try to use one piece of equipment that the Cooking Club brought me to buy - the Slow Cooker. I thought it would be equally interesting if I was to try a recipe I hadn't tried before. So, I found Chow's recipe for pulled Jerk Chicken, and with me licking my lips I just had to go for it. I've amended the recipe below based on my experiences.

INGREDIENTS



For the rub (note the difference between tea/tablespoons!):
2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
4 teaspoons ground allspice
4 teaspoons sea salt
3 teaspoons ground nutmeg

Note: I doubled the original recipe as I found the rub only covered half the chicken.

For the chicken:
4 lbs bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

For the marinade:
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice [you'll need more than that lemon yoke I bought]
1/2 cup dark molasses (not blackstrap)
1/3 cup distilled white wine vinegar
1/3 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1/3 cup soy sauce
10 peppercorns
5 medium garlic cloves, smashed
3 medium scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups coriander (about 1 bunch), coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh thyme leaves
1 (3-inch) piece fresh ginger, sliced into 1/4-inch coins
1 Scotch bonnet or habanero pepper, sliced into rounds [I was surprised to find the scotch bonnet in a packet of the mixed peppers that Tesco sell]

Note 1: If you feel like that there isn't enough marinade in the slow cooker, I would recommend putting in a beer or a concoction of molasses/vinegar/lemon juice/orange juice/soy sauce etc. Be careful about over filling the slow cooker (more later).

Note 2: If you're being precise, here are some cup conversion details: http://allrecipes.com/howto/cup-to-gram-conversions/

What's recommended when serving:
12 crispy white baps
Butter
Some salad
An empty stomach
Maybe a beer. Beer and chicken is always good.

INSTRUCTIONS
1) Put the rub together. A mortar is always handy for this - once the spices/rub are mixed in the mortar the chicken thighs can be rubbed against side of it which makes the whole process easy.





2) Once the chicken is coated, put the frying pan on. You want to fry each side of the chicken in the olive oil until browned - I did sometimes less than 5 minutes per side. You will fit maybe 5 or 6 pieces per frying pan. The recipe states medium heat but I put it on 5 (highest setting) to start with and then 4.





Once the chicken is well browned each side, pop it into the slow cooker for safe keeping. Repeat with other pieces of chicken.

3) Once your first set of chicken is on the pan, you should begin to make your marinade. Put everything together. If you wish, you can blend it together - I didn't bother as you can see.



4) So, all the chicken has now been fried on both sides and is sitting in the slow cooker as such:



Add the marinade over the chicken in the slow cooker. As noted above, feel free to top it up with beer or a concoction of the liquids from the recipe above if you don't feel there's enough. However, be careful of over filling the slow cooker with too much liquid - try to leave a few centimetres free at the top to stop burning of the liquid (more than I have left!).

5) Cook the chicken for 4 hours (high) or up to 8 hours (low).



Note the stains where it overflowed during cooking below:



And as if I haven't laboured the point enough, you'll probably damage your slow cooker like this if you overfill like I did:



6) You will know the chicken is ready when it is falling apart when you're trying to pick it up. Remove each chicken piece to a cutting board, and 'pull' the meat apart. While it will be easy to pull it apart, it will be a painstaking process to get the meat as with chicken there's a lot of bone, skin and fat to remove and negotiate. However, by the end of this process it's worth it as you'll have a full bowl of tasty chicken:



7) Get your rolls, your butter, your salad and most importantly your tasty chicken.



Combine. Taste. Enjoy.

...undeleting this (was hidden in the Engineering forum) and posting this now as I don't think I'll get a chance to submit it tomorrow.

Princess Peach

Always love slow cooker recipes can't wait to try it!

Faith

Dónal wrote: »

...undeleting this (was hidden in the Engineering forum) and posting this now as I don't think I'll get a chance to submit it tomorrow.

I was staring at the moderator log trying to figure out how you had the power to delete/undelete in here, and how I hadn't noticed the thread before .

confusticated

Looks good, have you a rough idea of how many dinners this would give? Quantities seem pretty big...

The official recipe has it at 8 - 12 servings (when using with buns), I'd agree with that.

If you're having it by itself (as my fiancée did the night she came home to find I made it) then that number would reduce a good bit. I had two buns of it, two plastic containers full of it and pasta (hey some things never change), herself ate a good bit and I gave a plastic container of it away to a mate.

This picture shows the full amount of meat obtained in the right hand picture:



One thing to add, once cooked if you're separating it into containers I would put some of the leftover sauce in on top of it so that it continues to marinade.

The Black Oil

Definitely making this.

confusticated

Glad I asked now, I'll be halving that!

decisions

*Adds to list of things to do when I eventually pick up a slow cooker*

Looks gorgeous!

BaZmO*

Looks great. Will probably have to reduce quantities to fit into my tincey slow cooker, although leaving the spares ones to marinade longer probably wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

Lovely Bloke

Is it possible without a slow cooker?

TheNinthGate

TheNinthGate wrote: »

Is it possible without a slow cooker?

Based on the experiences of the folk with Sparks' Pulled Pork, it seems possible in an oven or on the hob. Borrowing what Sparks said, a typical oven will cycle between temperatures so cooking it on low (say, 100 degrees) is quite difficult. Putting it into a heavy casserole type dish (possibly cast iron) was shown in the above thread to help a good bit.

Quazzy mentioned their experiences before (cast iron casserole in the oven) and after (slow cooker):

Pulled Pork the sequel was just as good as as my first effort. It was made a hell of a lot easier because of the slow cooker - highly recommend getting one if you want to do this more than once.

...

FYI - I cooked the pork on high for about 9 hours and the pork was amazing.

So to sum up the answer to your question... possibly yes! Basically you'll have to try it out and report back with the results :pac:

oscarBravo

In the slow cooker now. Can't wait!

pugwall

I accidentally bought blackstrap molasses today.. Oops.. I wonder can I go ahead and use it?

godtabh

having originally seen this on the engineering forum I tried it out.

Didnt have a slow cooker but had a heavy cast iron casserole dish. First 4 hours were at 100 degrees. 2 hours at 150. Worked a treat.

BTW shame on you Donal. As an engineer I was expecting metric measurements! Have a read of Cooking for engineers next time

oscarBravo

Om nom nom.

oscarBravo

I strained the cooking liquid, boiled it until it was reduced by half, and added some beurre manié. The result is a rather nom (and rather spicy!) jerk/bbq sauce that goes very well with the chicken.

I'll be doing this one again!

godtabh

any one tried it with pork?

pugwall

pugwall wrote: »

I accidentally bought blackstrap molasses today.. Oops.. I wonder can I go ahead and use it?

There will be a difference in taste between the two - but I don't know exactly what the impact will be when slow cooking it.

Pork shoulder should work perfectly fine, or a leg.

Malari

I really want to try this, despite lack of slow cooker. I do, however, have a cast iron casserole and my gas oven does have a setting below GM 1 marked "slow cook" so this gives me hope

Is molasses more or less black treacle? I bought that for a recipe once and still have a full jar.

Malari

Malari wrote: »

I really want to try this, despite lack of slow cooker. I do, however, have a cast iron casserole and my gas oven does have a setting below GM 1 marked "slow cook" so this gives me hope

Is molasses more or less black treacle? I bought that for a recipe once and still have a full jar.

Go for it!

From what I can find out, it's basically the same but depending on the brand there may be a difference in sweetness in black treacle and molasses.

oscarBravo

I used treacle because that's what I had. Obviously I don't know how different it was from what the original recipe envisages, but it tasted damn fine to me

The Black Oil

In the slow cooker there now.

Malari

Mine is in the oven! I only had about 3lbs of chicken and got sick of trying to adjust the measurements AND convert to real money from cups ;-) so I'm not sure how accurate my marinade is or how much liquid is meant to be in with the chicken. I'm sure it will be fine!

pugwall

I made this last week and will be making it again this week. What an awesome recipe! I had it with salads in both a nap and in a flat bread rap purchased in an Asian market on Moore st and the wrap won hands down. I dross else's som sweet chilli sauce on top and that combo worked really well. Recommend!

http://flic.kr/p/e1Lfyz

Malari

This turned out really well. I had less time than I thought, so ended up cooking it at GM 1 for about 4 and a half hours. Really tasty in a sandwich or pasta and even cold the next day. I love chicken thigh meat anyway, but it was amazing how well the marinade flavours were absorbed.

I seemed to have LOADS of the rub as well, so I have it ready to go the next time

unkel

All in the slow cooker now. Bring on 6PM

unkel

oscarBravo wrote: »

I strained the cooking liquid, boiled it until it was reduced by half, and added some beurre manié. The result is a rather nom (and rather spicy!) jerk/bbq sauce that goes very well with the chicken.

This! The spicy sauce really made this recipe. Rolls buttered, pulled chicken in it and then generous helpings of the sauce on top of the chicken. I just liquidised the cooking marinade and reduced it by about 65% (mine was quite liquid / watery to start with)

Will be making this again, and have freezed some of the leftovers for a stir fry. Thanks OP

Malari

Was the sauce not quite fatty, as all the chicken was cooked skin on?

unkel

It didn't really strike me as fatty, but it probably was to an extent. All the juices of the chicken obviously went in it.

Going to have to remake this myself to test the sauce out!