Hot To Cook Jamaican Curry Chicken
Jamaican Curry Chicken
Curry chicken is one of the easiest dishes to cook as its quite simple and chicken is one of the cheapest meats around. If you visit four people in Jamaica and they each make curry chicken for you,it will taste quite different. But ll will be very delicious.
Curry chicken is one of my favorite Jamaican foods. To get it prepared right though you have to ensure you do the most important part; marinate it.
During Saturday nights in almost every Jamaican home, the mothers are seasoning the meat for Sunday dinner. If you want your meal to taste as good as theirs, then you have to follow this two step process.
Ingredients
- Chicken, you can use a whole chicken or any parts of the chicken
- Curry powder
- Ginger
- Garlic
- Escallion (green onions)
- Onion
- Seasoning salt
- Paprika
- Ginger
- Thyme
- Rosemary (fresh or from a bottle)
- Scotch Bonnet or Jalapeno Pepper, optional (adjust to your heat level)
- Lime juice, to wash the chicken (fresh or bottled)
- Potatoes
Instructions
- Wash the chicken in water and lemon juice, then cut into bite sized chunks.
- Add the onion, green onions, chopped ginger and thyme
- Add the seasoning salt, curry powder, paprika
- Use your hand to mix all the seasoning into the chicken
- Cover and place in refrigerator until the next day.
Day 1
Day 2
It's Sunday and at about 4:30p or so I started dinner. I had talked to my mom on the phone and she told me that I need to add some tomatoes to the seasoning. It is funny how the recipe is so different depending on whom you talk to.
Now in Jamaica, dinner would already be done cooking. You see on Sundays, dinner preparation is started about the same time as breakfast. So by about 3p or so dinner is usually served. Well, no can do, I woke up at about 10a and lazed around the apartment all day.
After adding the tomatoes, peeling and cutting up the potatoes, I placed the seasoned chicken in the pot with some oil on the stove at 4:44p.
I also started a kettle of water as well as some rice and two ears of corn on the cob.
Dinner is on its way.
It is good to have a kettle of hot water so you can add it to the cooking as needed. Adding cold water slows down the process.
In a few minutes I added the diced potatoes to the curried chicken, added some black pepper and also added salt to taste. By 5:44p, everything was cooked and dinner was ready.
Kerwin – so on Day 2 is there anything special you have to do in order to cook the chicken? How about adding water or broth?
Hi Tony,
Thanks for checking out the site.
On Day 2, you add some cooking oil over the chicken (you can actually add the oil the night before as well) and then cover the pot and place on the lit stove. The chicken will start to fry a bit and the steam will start the cooking process. After a few minutes, you add some plain warm water to just cover the chicken. Then let simmer adding additional warm water as needed.
I hope that helps.
Ok so I have always been told that I must “burn the curry first” (This is where the pot is heated with oil only and curry is tossed in). I noted this was not mentioned. can you say what’s the reason behind doing so. Most persons associate the upset stomach after eating a curried meal as the curry not being burnt. Could you elaborate??