Food Hospital - Jerk Chicken with Rice and Peas

[herbsandhelpers]

Jerk Chicken with Rice and Peas

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the jerk chicken

4 chicken breasts, skin-on, flattened out

4 chicken breasts

For the sauce

4 spring onions

A small bunch fresh thyme

3 fresh bay leaves

1/4 of a teaspoon of ground cloves

A good grating of fresh nutmeg

1/4 of a teaspoon of ground allspice

3 tablespoons of rum

3 tablespoons of cider vinegar

1 tablespoon of runny honey

1 Scotch bonnet chilli

4 cloves garlic

For the rice and peas

2 spring onions, trimmed and sliced

1 garlic clove, crushed

2 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves picked

400g can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

400g long grain brown rice

½ a 400ml tin of reduced fat coconut milk

Fresh coriander, chopped, to serve

For the mango salsa

1 ripe mango, peeled and diced

A handful of cherry tomatoes, roughly chopped

½ a small red onion, peeled and very finely chopped

1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

A small bunch of coriander, leaves picked

1 lime

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Preheat the oven to 220C. Chop up the spring onions a bit and put them in a food processor with all the other sauce ingredients. Pour your whizzed jerk sauce into a bowl then add the chicken and leave to marinate for half an hour.

Meanwhile get the rice and peas going. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan and fry the spring onion, garlic and thyme for a couple of minutes. Add the rice, stir well and the coconut milk and a tin full of water and bring to the boil. Add the kidney beans and simmer, and cover, for about 20 minutes until the rice is cooked. Season with the salt and freshly ground black pepper, stir in the chopped coriander.

Now back to the chicken. Heat a griddle pan, or a normal pan if you haven’t got a griddle, and get it roasting hot then griddle the chicken for 5 or 6 minutes without touching it so it chars, turn over and give it another 5 or 6 minutes, then pop into the oven for a couple of minutes to cook through.

Now make your salsa, put all the ingredients apart from the lime on a big board and chop together, squeeze over the juice of the lime and season well.

Serve the jerk chicken on a pile of rice topped with your mango salsa.

For more recipes featuring chicken, visit the 4Food site