First Jerk of Spring

5 lb. Bone-In Chicken Thighs
1 Cup Orange Juice
½ Cup Corn Oil
¼ Cup Soy Sauce
½ Cup Apple Cider Vinegar
4 Habanero Chiles, Minced
1 Sweet Onion, Chopped
6 Garlic Cloves, Minced
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1 tsp Star Anise, Ground
1 tbsp Ground Black Pepper
4 tsp Whole Allspice, Ground
2 tbsp Brown Sugar
1 tbsp Dried Thyme

Pretty Simple, combine everything and let it marinate over night. Currently the Chicken Thighs are in the smoker with 2 and ½ ounces of hickory and about 1 and ½ teaspoons of whole Allspice in the smoke box (I put the Allspice in a small, glass Pyrex bowl). I am cooking the Chicken at 225F until the internal temp is 175F which I am thinking will be about 3 and ½ hours.

I’ll post some pictures when the bird is done, I love Jerk Chicken.

I wonder if you could use that on a boneless leg of lamg?
Do you mix everything to make a paste or just a more liquid marinade?

Not that I'm a great lamb fan,and with our island communities I do cook a lot of jerk-but IMHO you would be wasting one,or the other.

Lamb probably ought to be lamb,med rare ,with some garlic and rosemary and olive oil.

Chicken is a great foil for taking on flavors and lends itself to jerk.

Pork does well,also.

Just my $0.02

Thanks for the recipe. We spent a week in Jamaica in November and liked the jerk. Got the thighs marinating right now and will be driving to my nearest Cabelas in the am to buy the smoker. Only 100 miles away. By the way this will be my first ever smoker, looking forward to using it a lot. Later>>

Which smoker are ya gettin'?

Did the jerk recipe convince ya?

Smart decision!

Leaning towards the SMOO9. It's just the wife and I for now. Been researching them for a few months now. We were planning on buying one in June, but I can't wait that long.

Remember ,you need a seasoning cook,before you jump into the yardbird.

I should say that the thighs could take an additional 12 or more hours to marinate. The meat was great but as often happens with a smoker, you mainly taste smoke. So, go ahead and season the smoker and do the chicken tomorrow. IMHO

Seasoned the smoker for 3 hours and then put the thighs in. They were done in 1.5 hours. Yes they could have marinated longer and they did mainly taste like smoke. All in all I would say it was a success. The meat was very moist and tender. Putting in a pork butt in a couple hours. Trying to figure out if the fat cap goes up or down in the smoker. It's been rubbed and waiting for me in the fridge. By the way I ended up getting the black smokette. Later>>

Fat cap up.

Good that's what I did. Put it in at 9:45, it's 9.66 lbs. Have to see how long it takes.

It might be done by noon. More like 1400. If you gotta work today, just turn it down to 200* when you get up and let it go like that all day. If it is not at 195* yet when you return from work, turn it up to 250* until so. This first cook with fatty pork is more for seasoning so it probably won't be as good as your next butt.

Receipe and end product looks great.
Can not live without Walkerswood, but will definitely do yours next,
Thanks,
Rob

It really could stand to sit in the marinade a bit longer and some additional soy sauce added. A jerk style dry rub after you take it out of the soak might not be a bad idea either