Drunken Pineapple Jerk Chicken

Hi there! Let me tell you about a little something I did. A couple of months ago, I decided to sign up for a Telephone Recipe contest hosted by www.FoodBlogSouth.com. The rules are similar to the old game of telling a secret to so many people and seeing how much it changes by the time it gets to the last person. For instance, in this recipe contest, we start with a simple roasted chicken recipe, but the recipe changes from person to person. The nice lady, Erin, at www.cookingwitherin.com changed hers up quite a bit!  Her recipe, like everyone’s so far, is very unique.  She stayed with her Irish roots for her Irish roast chicken with drunken carrots.  You should visit her site and check her recipe here.   Her chicken and veggies sound delish, I may have to give some of these recipes being passed around a try one of these days soon.  Just to try to keep in the spirit of things with Erin’s recipe, I decided to also keep alcohol in my recipe….she used whiskey in her carrots, I used beer in my chicken. Beer seems to moisten meat quite well I have found. You can never say no to a drunken chicken, it’s just good stuff. Let me start by saying that I removed the skin of the chicken. You see, I try to eat a wee bit on the healthy side. Okay, A LOT BIT on the healthy side. As much as I possibly can. I’m not a personal trainer or nutritionist, but I have read that you can cut calories and fat by removing the skin from chicken. So, this is what I did: I removed the innards of the chicken, skinned it, washed it and dried it before I seasoned it.

So now that I have bared my chicken to you, let me list the ingredients I used for the jerky little chicken:

3/4 Jerk seasoning (recipe will be posted at bottom of post)

Olive oil

Pineapple juice (I used 2 – 6 oz cans of Dole Pineapple juice)

1 – 12 oz. can of beer (your choice, for this recipe I used Natural Light, be sure to pour 1/4 cup or so out of the can before you use it for the chicken)

For the potatoes:

7 Yukon gold potatoes

1 small sweet onion sliced

1 cup of baby carrots

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. paprika

2 tsp. dried chives

1/2 tsp. sea salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper

olive oil

Before we go much further, I want to tell you that I let the chicken marinate in the pineapple juice overnight before I cooked it. To season the skinned chicken, I rubbed it down in olive oil first. I used about 2-3 tbsp. of olive oil. Then, taking small handfuls of the jerk seasoning, I rubbed and patted it all over the chicken. Once I was done with that, I took a gallon size Ziploc bag and poured the pineapple juice in it. Into the pineapple juice the jerk seasoned chicken went. I set it in the fridge to marinate overnight.

The next night, I took the chicken out of the fridge. I got my roasting pan out and set my oven to preheat to 400 degrees. Into the roasting pan went diced potatoes, whole baby carrots. sliced sweet onion. I drizzled about 2 tbsp. olive oil all over the potato mix then added all the seasonings I listed above and stirred. Then I parted the potatoes in the middle to leave room to set my chicken atop the beer can.

I cooked the chicken for 1 hour in the oven. It smells divine while it cooks!! The chicken turned out moist with a touch of sweet heat while the potatoes, carrots and onions had a great flavor! They really complimented each other. It made for a great meal! Enjoy the pictures and don’t forget to check out the jerk seasoning recipe at the bottom of the post. Now, let’s pass this recipe on over to Jackie at syrup and biscuits!

Recipe for the Jerk seasoning:

1 tbsp. onion powder

2 tsp. dried thyme leaves

1 tsp. dried parsley

1 tbsp. light brown sugar

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. ground black pepper

1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 tsp. paprika

1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

1 tbsp. garlic powder

2 tsp. sea salt

1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

Mix all together and rub on chicken or pork or store in an air tight container.

ENJOY!!

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