Jamaican Brown Stew chicken

Fowl 

Finally posting this recipe to the blog, can’t believe it took me this long considering we cook this pretty often. Brown stew chicken is a Jamaican staple. You can find it in every cook shop and restaurant that serves traditional Jamaican cuisine. Everyone has their signature way of preparing it, here is mine.

This post is dedicated to my sister who left the house headed to the grocery store to buy ketchup because she had to make brown stew chicken. She called me while in the store, I was like boo, you don’t need ketchup, and she insisted she did! In that moment I decided I would add brown stew chicken to the lineup, so while she edits the video she can see that in fact, you don’t need ketchup to make brown stew chicken. As a matter of fact, you don’t need soy sauce, ketchup, browning or anything to make it ‘brown’.

I notice most recipes use something to add the brown color to the meat, when in actuality if you take the time to ‘brown’ the meat you will also achieve the desired brown color. All you need is a nice medium/high heat not super-hot because you don’t want the pot to burn.  Brown in batches so as not to over crowd the pot and cause sweating to occur, because it the pot sweats, or if you cover it, it won’t brown it will steam. 

There is only one ingredient that if I didn’t have it I would leave home to get it. And that the Sweet green peppers. That adds so much flavor to brown stew chicken it is unreal. If we don’t have the peppers I don’t even make this dish, it is that serious. I think allspice too is an ingredient that I might leave home to get. But it is possible to make brown stew without allspice and it be fantastic but it’s even more fantastic with the addition of the allspice.  

This is a nice and simple go too weekday dinner. Season the meat before work and cook it after. You wouldn’t regret  it, super flavorful. 

Ingredients (printable ingredient list)

4 leg quarters

½ teaspoon Black pepper

1 tablespoon ground Allspice

1 tablespoon Onion powder

1 tablespoon Garlic powder

¼ teaspoon Cayenne pepper

2 tablespoon Oil

1 tablespoon Paprika

2 teaspoon salt

1 green pepper

1 onion

½ scotch bonnet pepper

2 garlic cloves

3 tablespoon oil

2 ½ cups water

2 teaspoon honey

Greedy tips about salt:

• As it pertains to seasoning, when I make brown stew chicken or even curry chicken the only time I add salt is when I season the meat. The only kind of salt we use is pink  Himalayan sea salt which is very salty. Generally I find sea salt to be saltier than regular table salt. So you can adjust your salt levels accordingly, depending on the type of salt you are using.
• Also when adding salt to the stew, wait until the gravy is almost reduced then taste it to see if added seasoning is necessary. If you taste it before the sauce is reduced it will deceive you into adding salt, and then when it reduces can be overly concentrated and too salty. So never add salt at the time when you add the water, always wait until the gravy has almost reached the desired consistency to add salt. Generally however if you follow the recipe and the method you may find it unnecessary to add additional salt. 
• Also If you prefer to used a salted broth/stock in stead of water adjust the seasoning to the meat and use less salt to season.

Xoxo Greedygirl