Test Kitchen - Jamaican Jerk Wings

I feel like I cheated just a teensy bit with Test Kitchen for last week. I showed you guys jerk seasoning but I already had a vague idea of how to use it. I'll admit that it's not so out of the box as it should be because Jamaican jerk chicken is a common idea but c'mon, the Superbowl was over the weekend! How does one resist making wings? So yeah, that's what the Test Kitchen ingredient was used for. Please don't get upset with me - I promise their deliciousness will be worth it. My apologies for those of you who did submit suggestions; I would have used them had I not used up all my jerk seasoning on this recipe below (barely adjusted from here).

Step 1: Ingredients (yields 20-24 pieces)

• 10-12 chicken wings (approximately 2 pounds)
• 1/3 cup Jamiacan jerk seasoning
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup orange juice with pulp
• 2 tbsps lime juice
• 2 tbsps olive oil
• 2 tbsps soy sauce

Step 2: Prepping the ingredients
In a large plastic bag set inside a bowl, add together all ingredients except wings. Shake to mix thoroughly! For the wings, remove wing tips & cut wing at joint between drummette and wing. Take heed of any small pieces of bone that may be around during this process - remove if you find them! Add chicken to bag of marinade and refrigerate for at minimum 4 hours, turning occasionally.

Step 3: Finishing
When you're ready, you can either stick the chicken wings on a grill or broil it. My available option was broiling so I laid out the chicken wings onto a broiler pan and tossed the marinade. Each side was broiled between 5-6 minutes to give a nice crispy skin and cook the chicken to doneness while remaining juicy. Dig in!


This week's Test Kitchen ingredient: Chinese five spice
"Five-spice powder is a mixture of five spices used primarily in Chinese cuisine but also used in other Asian cookery. While there are many variants, a common mix is:

• Star anise (bajiao, 八角)
• Cloves (dingxiang, 丁香)
• Chinese Cinnamon (rougui, 肉桂)
• Sichuan pepper (huajiao, 花椒)
• Fennel seeds (xiaohuixiang , 小茴香) 

Other recipes may contain anise seed or ginger root, nutmeg, turmeric, Amomum villosum pods (砂仁), Amomum cardamomum pods (白豆蔻), licorice, black pepper, Mandarin orange peel, or galangal. In the South China, Cinnamomum loureiroi and Mandarin orange peel is commonly used as a substitute for Cinnamomum cassia and cloves, respectively, producing a different flavour for southern versions five-spice powders." [Wikipedia]

Let me know what you think I should do with it by commenting on Facebook!



Photography by Duc Duong.