IIRC, I picked up a jar of Walkers Wood at Famous Liquors in Lombard.

LTH,

I typically make my own jerk paste loosely following an old Frugal Gourmet recipe but, inspired by Seebee in the What are you making for dinner tonite? thread, I picked up jar of Walkerswood and a 6-pack of chicken leg/thigh quarters.

Added jalapeno, lime, knob onion, garlic and olive oil to the Walkerswood, will let the chicken marinate for approx 36-hours before grilling with lump charcoal and wood.







Enjoy,
Gary

Strack and Van Til
on Elston @ Logan Boulevard carries Walkerswood.
Mike G- the best Grocery Store Manager in The World ordered
it for me- and they now stock it. He is very helpful to "foodies" and others in search of what they "need".
When a produce section carries fresh lemongrass, to me- that's a good sign.

I find- it needs no embellishments- Hot, as is.
Place the Chicken thighs in a Ziplock with a few tablespoons of Walkerswood-
let em mingle for about 4 hours-
and yer good and ready to grill em up!

Strack and Van Til- Elston
2627 N. Elston Ave
Chicago, Illinois 60647
773-252-6400 Hours: 6am to Midnight

Treasure Island on Clybourn and World Market, as well.

I have seen this in a few different recipes, add a couple dashes of soy with the Walkerswood during the marinating process. My wife now insists I do this when making any jerk items. Good luck and Gary I like the addition of the jalapeno's and lime. I have added a little pineapple juice as well. Which also gave it a very caribbean taste.

Danny

To come full circle (in some weird sort of way,) I actually made two of the leg/thigh portions with Gary Wiviott's Rub from the Spice House for seebee jr.

This was the first time I let the chicky parts soak in the seasoning for over 24 hours, and tell you what - even
wife 1.0 was ok with having leftovers for dinner for the third night in a row. 24 hours will be my min marinating time from here on out. It really permeates the flesh nicely when you let it soak in like the jar says. In my next trial, I think I'm gonna add in some fresh garlic, and habanero, and throw it all into the food proc to get it mixed in well. This Walkerswood stuff has me totally hooked. I guess I should make my own jerk paste at some point.

Hombre de acero - I highly suggest you let em mingle overnight if you have never done so. It REALLY makes a massive difference, imo. Also, get the stuff under the skin, too.

seebee wrote:This Walkerswood stuff has me totally hooked. I guess I should make my own jerk paste at some point.

Seebee,

A guy who makes his own giardiniera should definitely make his own jerk, but I was surprised at how much I liked the Walkerswood. Add-ins and longer marination enhanced, next time out I will follow Jhawk's suggestion and add a little soy and pineapple juice. Also a Seebee recommended habanero for more heat, Walkerswood packed a punch, though more jab than uppercut.

Chicken and veg were grilled with lump charcoal and a few chunks of hickory. Whipped up a pot of fungi, a starchy cornmeal/okra polenta like side dish.

Jerk Chicken







I plate like a stoned monkey, but it tasted good


Grilled ciabatta w/nduja



Enjoy,
Gary

G Wiv wrote:next time out I will follow Jhawk's suggestion and add a little soy and pineapple juice. Also a Seebee recommended habanero for more heat

Same basic recipe w/Walkerswood as above, though I added added both pineapple juice and habanero as per Seebee and Jhawk. I thought both added nicely to the mix, in fact as we were eating my wife actually used the word "wonderful" made me smile.

Grilled direct on the Big Green Egg w/lump and a smidgen of hickory.

Jerk Chicken







Legs needed a bit more time so I split them off and finished with the bread.



Skokie farmers market corn/tomato/basil. Mozzarella from Graziano's



I'm digging the Walkerswood, but will have to go back to making my own jerk soon so I don't start feeling like Sandra Lee.

Enjoy,
Gary

G Wiv wrote:Seebee,

A guy who makes his own giardiniera should definitely make his own jerk, but I was surprised at how much I liked the Walerswood.

Challenge Accepted!

So, wife 1.0 was suffering from some jet lag this am, and settled into a 9am nap. I figured, what the heck, turned on the laptop, went into the kitchen, and had a little jerk session. My csa guy offered up a few extra bunches of green onions, fresh garlic, and the hot peppers were starting to come in, so he hooked me up with a sampling of bhut jolokias, and some thai finger hots...it was on like Donkey Kong.

The bounty:


The guests of honor:




Plus, I got to bust out one of the new toys for the first time!!!



So, the ingredient list was:
Shallots
green onion
fresh and jarred garlic
ginger paste
Cinnamon
Black pepper
dark brown sugar
nutmeg
Fresh thyme
Ground allspice
Lime Juice
Corn oil
White vinegar
fresh jalapeno
Fresh Thai Finger hots
Fresh bhut jolokias
Fresh Habanero

I processed the ingredients sep, and made two batches. One hot, and the other extra hot. Batch one coming together:


My babies:


These definitely tasted flippin great. The heat level on batch number two was pretty high. Good fruity habanero flavor really came through tho. I'm letting em fester in the fridge for a few days before gettin my smoke on. I'm guessing the nutmeg and allspice really need some time to bloom, and the other flavors will need to meld. More to come...

Made my 1st batch last night. Applied the jerk paste to the chicky parts the day before, got it under the skin. Flavor was insanely good - cinnamon popped out VERY nicely. I was very surprised at how much the heat mellowed after the smoke.
The fresh garlic and good cinnamon really made this worthwhile compared to the Walkerswood. Definitely noticed a very good flavor enhancement there. It was one of those sneakily funny dinners last night. Not a lot of talking going on. As soon as the chicken came off the smoker, we started by putting salad on our plates. As we were ready to head to the table with our salads, I threw a thigh on the cutting board, and cut through it. We each snagged a tiny piece of meat to try before sitting down with salad. Suddenly, we both had half a thigh on our salad plates. Before salads were done, we each got back up and grabbed another whole piece of bird. This happened several times while we were trying to finish our first course of salad. We each wound up with a mound of chicken bones on our plates, and half of the salad we started with when it was all over, and I snuck in a few more bites during the clean up process. A rousing success, I'd say. Next batch, however, will have more habanero, more allspice, and more fresh garlic. I'm really quite surprised at how much heat was lost in the smoke. The paste, right from the jar, is still blazin hot.

Binko wrote:This is my current standard:

8-12 Scotch bonnets or habanero peppers
3 tablespoons freshly ground allspice
2 tablespoons fresh thyme (or half the amount dried)
8 cloves garlic
1 red onion
1/4 C dark brown sugar (edited: this was originally stated as 1/2 C)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1/4 C lime juice
2 tablespoons soy sauce

You can also throw in about 2 inches of fresh, grated ginger, and about 1/2 cup of green onions or chives.

Blend all ingredients together in a food processor to make a coarse paste. You can add a little lime juice or water if it seems too thick, but you want this to be a paste.

This recipe is very very spicy, so you may want to go easy on the Scotch bonnets/habaneros, perhaps even cutting it down to one or two. The most important components here are the peppers, allspice, and thyme. Do not skip any of those. You can get away with missing some of the other ingredients, though.

Coat chicken (or pork) in paste. (Whole chicken, chicken leg-thigh quarters, chicken wings, and pork loin work the best.) If you have sensitive skin and follow the recipe as I've given it, you'll want to wear gloves. Get some paste under the skin, if you can. Let the paste and meat mingle for at least 4 hours, preferably 8 or more. (I've gone as long as 24 hours.) Grill until done (use whatever method of grilling you're comfortable with. Either a low, direct fire, or an indirect fire. Use a little wood, about two fist-sized chunks, for flavor. If you must use gas, set to around 300-325.) When doing whole chicken, I prefer to grill them spatchcocked, and I usually do them in a WSM with the waterpan removed.

Just cranked out a batch of jerk paste closely based on the above, might have been a little heavy with the allspice but I don't think that will be a bad thing. Went with the full 12 scotch bonnets which are readily available at Old World. Gave a a quick taste and it's delicious and face meltingly hot. Can't wait fire up the grill this weekend.

Hope it works out well! I tend to like my jerk pretty assertive on the allspice, so feel free to knock it down in the future if you don't like quite that much an allspice kick. One to one and a half tablespoons is probably a more normal starting point, but the 3 Tbsp is what I use. The only thing I do different these days is I try to incorporate green onions into the recipe when I can. A lot of times, I'll just buy knob onions and use a bunch (maybe 3 or 4) whole (bulb and greens) for the onion part of the recipe. I rarely do it the same way twice, but that's the blue print and I make sure to have enough heat, allspice, thyme, and salt in the rub, and the rest is whatever I happen to have around.

I mentioned before about diluting the paste in orange or lime juice as a dip. I've also come to enjoy making a kind of jerk barbecue sauce with this, taking about one part ketchup to one part cider vinegar and adding the jerk paste to taste to slather on whatever.

Binko wrote:Hope it works out well! I tend to like my jerk pretty assertive on the allspice, so feel free to knock it down in the future if you don't like quite that much an allspice kick. One to one and a half tablespoons is probably a more normal starting point, but the 3 Tbsp is what I use. The only thing I do different these days is I try to incorporate green onions into the recipe when I can. A lot of times, I'll just buy knob onions and use a bunch (maybe 3 or 4) whole (bulb and greens) for the onion part of the recipe. I rarely do it the same way twice, but that's the blue print and I make sure to have enough heat, allspice, thyme, and salt in the rub, and the rest is whatever I happen to have around.

I mentioned before about diluting the paste in orange or lime juice as a dip. I've also come to enjoy making a kind of jerk barbecue sauce with this, taking about one part ketchup to one part cider vinegar and adding the jerk paste to taste to slather on whatever.

Nice recipe - that's got to be packing some major heat! I also like my jerk to have an assertive allspice flavor, and I also always incorporate green onions . . . and some garlic. A couple of other additions I have are a little dark rum and some worcestershire sauce. Thanks for putting this thread in my head again - perfect time of year to be thinking about it.

BR wrote:

Binko wrote:Hope it works out well! I tend to like my jerk pretty assertive on the allspice, so feel free to knock it down in the future if you don't like quite that much an allspice kick. One to one and a half tablespoons is probably a more normal starting point, but the 3 Tbsp is what I use. The only thing I do different these days is I try to incorporate green onions into the recipe when I can. A lot of times, I'll just buy knob onions and use a bunch (maybe 3 or 4) whole (bulb and greens) for the onion part of the recipe. I rarely do it the same way twice, but that's the blue print and I make sure to have enough heat, allspice, thyme, and salt in the rub, and the rest is whatever I happen to have around.

I mentioned before about diluting the paste in orange or lime juice as a dip. I've also come to enjoy making a kind of jerk barbecue sauce with this, taking about one part ketchup to one part cider vinegar and adding the jerk paste to taste to slather on whatever.

Nice recipe - that's got to be packing some major heat! I also like my jerk to have an assertive allspice flavor, and I also always incorporate green onions . . . and some garlic. A couple of other additions I have are a little dark rum and some worcestershire sauce. Thanks for putting this thread in my head again - perfect time of year to be thinking about it.

Try some Pickapeppa Sauce instead of the Worcestershire next time. It' a nice Jamaican substitute.

Dreaming of warmer days and itching to dig out the WSM for the first time since Oct. with temps in the 40's this weekend.

I'm gonna follow López-Alt's method.

Quick question though– I like the extra sauce served on the side, common to Chicago jerk shacks. Should I just make extra marinade? It seems like what I'm familiar with is more of a chile and onion based salsa-like affair. The brown sugar and soy sauce in the marinade recipe seem too intense for the sauce I have in mind. Any thoughts?