Barbe-Jerk Chicken

Cookout and BBQ Season!

Is there anything worse than dried out chicken? There probably is, but in the context of this post, it’s the worst thing ever. Over the years I have had too much dried out chicken cooked on an open flame.  No one has time for low and slow (unless you’re from the south) everyone throws the chicken on the grill at high heat until it cooks, then coats it with a nice sauce in an effort to camouflage the dryness. I know very well, in the past I too was an offender, but a chance rain shower helped a friend and I stumble upon the best technique. And I have never looked back.

I was around 16 years old (I’m twenty.. ‘cough ‘ now) Myself and a family friend were in charge of making a very large batch of chicken. I can’t remember the event, but we got it all well seasoned and ready, the day was overcast but no biggie. Fired up the coal grill and started grilling the chicken. About 20 minutes into the process the rain starts to pour. So here we are, he is manning the grill and I am holding the umbrella and it’s just not working out. Plan B, we had to take all the meat off put them in covered foil pans and finish them in the oven; So that we did.

After about 20 minutes, when we went to check on the chicken, we realized that the chicken had produced huge amounts of stock (we had not expected that) so we had to be continually straining off the liquid into a pot. Remember it was A LOT of chicken. Once we had all that stock might as well use it to make the BBQ sauce. Once the chickens were finally cooked and no stock was being produced we poured the sauce over and allowed it to broil for a few minutes.

It was the best mishap ever. The chicken was so tender moist and juicy while fully cooked. Gone was the dried out BBQ chicken we had become so accustom to, and the best part, It had the smokey jerk flavor of being grilled because of the initial 20 minutes on the flames.

This was the birth of my Barbe-Jerk chicken. Start on the flames, finish in the oven. And use the stock for the sauce. It never fails!!








Greedy tips:

1. Keep the skin on when grilling so the meat does not dry out
2. For spicy chicken add slices of scotch bonnet peppers to the sauce
3. Cooking times; 16 minutes of grilling 25 minutes covered in the oven 8-15 minutes uncovered in the oven

 Ingredients: (Printable Recipe)

Chicken seasoning: 

16 pc chicken parts

 2 tbsp  oil

3 tsp. soy sauce

3t tsp. no salt seasoning

3 tsp.  all spice

1 tsp.  salt

1 tsp.  chopped scotch bonnet pepper
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. thyme leaves
1 tsp. ginger powder

1 tsp. black pepper

1 tsp. smoked paprika

BBQ sauce:

1 cup ketchup

1/3  cup sugar

¼ cup molasses

½ cup honey

1 tsp. all spice

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. smoked paprika

1 tsp. cayenne pepper

I wish I had the patients for low and slow cooking. I am yet to master temperature regulation on my little coal grill. So the grill to oven method works for me. It may seem a little tedious especially to strain the stock. But trust me once you get the hang of it, there really becomes no other way to cook Jerk or BBQ chicken.

XOXO Greedygirl