Jerk Chicken

Another fabulous afternoon on the roof. Using my new HDTV personal video recorder thingey, we put the Sox / Yankees game on pause (how cool is that) and fired up the grill. Not a cloud in sight:



In honor of David Ortiz, who has been kicking butt for the Sox, we decided to try making some jerk chicken. I don't actually know for certain that Ortiz likes jerk chicken, but I had a bottle of Uncle Billy's Voo Doo Jerk sauce and I was itching to give it a try (Uncle Billy's is like the best BBQ place in the state of Maine, and worth a visit if you find yourself in that area). The suggestion on the bottle was to mix equal parts Jerk sauce with maple syrup or molasses. I went with the syrup and added some diced habanero peppers for good measure. Also on the menu today were the house favorites bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers, and some bbq marinated steak tips:



I banked the coals for indirect heat so the maple syrup wouldn't turn into a carbonized crust on the chicken. Also, when cooking anything involving bacon on your grill, use a drip tray to prevent raging fireballs from incinerating your grub:





Apparently this bee was digging the bbq sauce and/or maple syrup fumes wafting off our roof. Matt entered into mortal combat with this beast, eventually ending him with a mighty spatula blow to the head. We built an honorory funeral pyre on the coals for this fallen soldier.



At any rate, the chicken came out great. Not too hot or over-powering, but more a tang of a zing on your lips. The sweet maple syrup did a great job of infusing into the meat, although I'm curious to see what molasses would taste like (bottom line there is that I needed maple syrup for other things too so it got the bump at the store). The jalapeno poppers were as good as always, one subtle change this time is that they didn't have any jalapenos at the store so they are actually a larger, slightly more mild green pepper. This had the added benefit of serving as a larger vehicle for the cream cheese. The steak was good, nothing too adventurous or new around here, but a good staple to compliment the chicken.

Labels: event