Mos has become a fierce Gordon Ramsay fan in recent months and my kind mammy bought him a giant cookbook of his for Christmas, Gordon Ramsay’s Ultimate Cookery Course. It’s a fabulous book which we both love – it has everything from recipes for cooking for crowds to cooking with spices. Gordon, you are a crinkly headed genius!

Anyway, at the weekend I felt like making something random and picked this recipe from the book for Jerk Chicken. It’s simple, tasty and gluten free – no substitutions. Gordon serves this with rice but I like wedges with this kind of grub. I’m doing enough to feed two here so multiply as needed.

What do I need?

Chicken, whatever you like will do – I used 4 legs but you could use drumsticks or thighs.

Olive oil, for frying

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce (I used Tiger Tiger, a GF brand I had)

Marinade

1-2 chillies – I used hot skinny red fellas but you can go milder with a jalpeno if you’re not a big spice fan

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

2 tsp ground allspice

2 tbsp thyme (fresh if you have it)

Salt & pepper to taste

Olive oil, 2 glugs from the bottle did it for me

Wedges

4 large potatoes, I used roosters

Salt and pepper to taste

2 tbsp Rapeseed oil

Corn

I used frozen cobs from Aldi

Salt to taste

 

This is how we do it:

  1. Make the marinade. Put all the ingredients in a blender (I used a hand blender) and blend that mother.
  2. Rub all over your chicken legs (be sure to score the flesh in a few places to let all the stuff in) and leave to marinate for an hour or two. Be careful with the chillies. I scratched my inner ear after doing this last Saturday, AFTER washing my hands and got a sore chilli ear from it, Mos is a witness!
  3. While you’re waiting on the meat, peel and chop the spuds into wedge shapes. Leave in a pan of cold water.  Apparently this drains out starch. It’s also handy to just have them there.
  4. When your meat is nice and marinated, it’s go time!
  5. Pre heat the oven to 200C
  6. Turn on the hob and boil your potato wedges for about 4 minutes. Drain the wedges and add to an ovenproof dish or roasting tin and roll in the oil. For extra crispy wedges, heat the oil to cook them in for a minute or two before adding in the wedges. Season with salt & pepper and whack in the oven
  7. When the wedges have been in the oven for around 15 minutes, get out the biggest frying pan you own and heat up medium high with olive oil. when it’s hot, place your legs in (as in the chicken legs, not the ones attached to your body). Don’t move them for at least 4 or 5 minutes . Turn the legs over and you should see the skin is nice and brown on the side you had face down. Fry for about 10 mins in total.
  8. Transfer the legs to an ovenproof dish, add the Worcestershire sauce, cover in foil and cook  for 20 minutes until cooked through.
  9. While the chicken and spuds are cooking, boil up your corn on the cob, this should take about 10 minutes.
  10. Get it in your belly!!