[upbeat music plays]<\/p>\n
Niki from Irie Jerk, we’re in Spanish Town<\/p>\n
about to make you guys the best jerk chicken you ever eat.<\/p>\n
Our style, Jamaican style.<\/p>\n
[bell rings]<\/p>\n
When you come to Irie Jerk, you’re their own family.<\/p>\n
But like when you come and be your own authentic self<\/p>\n
like we are, you don’t need to be nobody special<\/p>\n
for my Irie Jerk.<\/p>\n
Perfect jerk chicken to me, you have to do it with love.<\/p>\n
It is not just about spice and pepper.<\/p>\n
You gotta make sure your chicken is marinated.<\/p>\n
The smoke gives it the charcoal taste.<\/p>\n
You know the charcoal flavor. And don’t rush it.<\/p>\n
Take your time.<\/p>\n
Irie cool. Everything is good.<\/p>\n
Keep it calm. It’s a Jamaica thing, we say irie man.<\/p>\n
[upbeat music]<\/p>\n
I know you guys want to see the fire and the smoke. Me too.<\/p>\n
But before we get out there,<\/p>\n
we gotta season up this chicken.<\/p>\n
Who is that behind me? Right here?<\/p>\n
Yeah. That’s my wife.<\/p>\n
That’s my life. That’s my wife, Kahyii.<\/p>\n
My better half without her, irie jerk ain’t possible.<\/p>\n
These are the small chicken leg quarters.<\/p>\n
You have to clean out the guts.<\/p>\n
A lot of people don’t do that.<\/p>\n
You can’t eat chicken and you see liver and kidneys.<\/p>\n
When you use vinegar and lime<\/p>\n
and that’s what we use whether we have vinegar<\/p>\n
or lime, one of them has to be used.<\/p>\n
This is going inside of you.<\/p>\n
So now that we wash the chicken<\/p>\n
and it’s clean, so now we’re gonna add our<\/p>\n
powder seasoning to it.<\/p>\n
We do dry seasoning and wet seasoning,<\/p>\n
just to give the jerk the full flavor of it<\/p>\n
because the things<\/p>\n
that we use in the dry seasoning is different<\/p>\n
from the things that we do in the wet seasoning.<\/p>\n
Like the first thing we do, we add with allspice seasoning.<\/p>\n
Allspice is vital. This is the pimento, we need this.<\/p>\n
We usually use the wood itself as the fire in Jamaica.<\/p>\n
But we are in New York,<\/p>\n
so we are using the ground allspice right now.<\/p>\n
So we’re gonna pour a little ground sauce in here.<\/p>\n
We wanna add some ginger, you understand?<\/p>\n
We also gonna blend some up in the wet jar.<\/p>\n
We done with the ginger.<\/p>\n
For me, we use look a mixed up blend.<\/p>\n
You can call it Sazon mixed with whatever.<\/p>\n
This is my local blend.<\/p>\n
This is the garlic with the ground garlic.<\/p>\n
So you wanna add your garlic<\/p>\n
and this is your dry jerk seasoning.<\/p>\n
Just a little bit.<\/p>\n
It don’t have to be too much, ’cause it’s spicy.<\/p>\n
Jerk is just listen,<\/p>\n
I was born hearing the name jerk.<\/p>\n
I can’t tell you the full definition.<\/p>\n
I just go along with what the world does.<\/p>\n
So you wanna pour some chicken seasoning on it<\/p>\n
so you don’t wanna add salt<\/p>\n
because you have all these other dry seasoning<\/p>\n
that contain salt.<\/p>\n
So I know you got all your powder seasoning,<\/p>\n
all your dry seasoning on it.<\/p>\n
You wanna go ahead now<\/p>\n
and start making the wet one.<\/p>\n
To start your wet marinade,<\/p>\n
you wanna have the real, real, real life taste<\/p>\n
of these ingredients in it, coming from the earth.<\/p>\n
You need this. We have the raw ginger in there.<\/p>\n
You need that in the chicken.<\/p>\n
Mixed with the powdered one comes together.<\/p>\n
Good combination.<\/p>\n
This is our base<\/p>\n
for our wet marinade is Juices International Sorrel Drink.<\/p>\n
Tastes wonderful.<\/p>\n
A lot of people know what it is hibiscus.<\/p>\n
Everybody makes it Trinidad, [speaking foreign language],<\/p>\n
everybody makes it.<\/p>\n
But everybody’s tastes different.<\/p>\n
It adds a nice tang to it mixed with the other ingredients.<\/p>\n
The sorrel just brings out something in the chicken.<\/p>\n
So we wanna start the blend up.<\/p>\n
[blender whirring]<\/p>\n
First thing first, the spring onions.<\/p>\n
Yeah, you see this now?<\/p>\n
This is what look called the scotchy.<\/p>\n
This is a Scotch Bonnet Pepper. Very hot.<\/p>\n
I don’t take the stem outta my pepper.<\/p>\n
And you wanna add some pimento pepper.<\/p>\n
Pimento pepper is not hot, it just gives you flavor.<\/p>\n
Allspice grounded.<\/p>\n
I have allspice whole<\/p>\n
and I even have allspice in my grill<\/p>\n
’cause we use the pimento wood in Jamaica.<\/p>\n
So we gotta improvise here in America, we don’t have it.<\/p>\n
So everything pimento, we doing it.<\/p>\n
Beautiful.<\/p>\n
So the garlic, real garlic pegs. Need it.<\/p>\n
Shaved [indistinct] to me.<\/p>\n
Now you see this? This is where you call the thyme.<\/p>\n
Very, very essential in the flavoring of your food.<\/p>\n
God made this plant, I don’t know what he was thinking of.<\/p>\n
We’re going all in and nothing is going to waste.<\/p>\n
We’re gonna cut some onions up now and we gonna put them in<\/p>\n
and we need a raw ginger.<\/p>\n
So now we’re gonna leave some of this marinade.<\/p>\n
See that? See that?<\/p>\n
Now we’re gonna put it all up in our chicken now.<\/p>\n
Cover your chicken completely with it.<\/p>\n
So the season you sit behind the chicken,<\/p>\n
I’ll stuff it behind here so.<\/p>\n
When you’re jerking it on the grill now,<\/p>\n
you wanna make sure season the all on your chicken.<\/p>\n
So when you bite the chicken, when they eat the chicken,<\/p>\n
you’re supposed to taste everywhere<\/p>\n
I’m gonna put the seasoning.<\/p>\n
You’re supposed to,<\/p>\n
so even if the skin should fall off in the fire,<\/p>\n
you have a marinade right here.<\/p>\n
And I let this marinade for 24, 48 hours.<\/p>\n
If you gotta make it right away,<\/p>\n
like throw it on the grill right<\/p>\n
after seasoning it, choosing what I just told you to use,<\/p>\n
it’ll still be good.<\/p>\n
We’re gonna drop this on the grill and get ready to eat.<\/p>\n
We’re gonna make the sweet honey jerk sauce.<\/p>\n
So the wet marinade that we had earlier, some left in here.<\/p>\n
All right, so we’re gonna add some more<\/p>\n
of the juices, International Sorrel<\/p>\n
and we’re gonna add our honey sauce in there.<\/p>\n
Now man to make it sauce<\/p>\n
because it tastes good on top<\/p>\n
of the chicken when the food is done.<\/p>\n
I’m scared of the pepper as much as I’m Jamaican.<\/p>\n
So I gotta add some honey in there.<\/p>\n
We gotta make it blend a little bit longer.<\/p>\n
It’s got the spice<\/p>\n
and you could just add it on top of your chicken<\/p>\n
when you ready man.<\/p>\n
[upbeat music]<\/p>\n
So guys, we did all the hard work in the kitchen<\/p>\n
and it’s time to hit the streets.<\/p>\n
Made it outside guys.<\/p>\n
Chicken is ready to hit the fire.<\/p>\n
So we’re gonna put them in order,<\/p>\n
you know, make it nice and neat.<\/p>\n
And we’re gonna give it like 15,<\/p>\n
20 minutes on each side to make sure<\/p>\n
that it’s, it’s cooked thoroughly.<\/p>\n
It doesn’t matter if you put the skin up or skin down.<\/p>\n
It’s whichever way it comes up on the tongue is<\/p>\n
gonna cook the same way.<\/p>\n
Sometimes you do it and the skin might, you know, fall off.<\/p>\n
Nothing’s wrong with that.<\/p>\n
All right, so in like 20 minutes, like I said,<\/p>\n
we keep flipping it and make sure it’s cooked thoroughly.<\/p>\n
We call these grills the barrel grills.<\/p>\n
They’re not like the authentic ones in Jamaica<\/p>\n
’cause the authentic ones in Jamaica, we don’t have<\/p>\n
to have a rack on the grill.<\/p>\n
The the rack is already made in the grill.<\/p>\n
In Jamaica, we use the nutmeg wood or the pimento wood.<\/p>\n
In New York I don’t have that,<\/p>\n
so I have to improvise.<\/p>\n
So what I do use lump charcoal,<\/p>\n
no briquettes, no Match Light.<\/p>\n
I add my nutmeg and my pimento seeds in there.<\/p>\n
Give me that home flavor.<\/p>\n
I feel like I’m in Jamaica right now.<\/p>\n
We started very early this morning.<\/p>\n
This is like our third batch.<\/p>\n
We started since 6:00 AM this morning.<\/p>\n
When the line starts,<\/p>\n
we gotta make sure we have it on hand<\/p>\n
and people still gotta wait but we do it as fast as we can.<\/p>\n
Even though you don’t see the big fire underneath it.<\/p>\n
It’s being slow cooked on top.<\/p>\n
You know, closing the lids.<\/p>\n
We don’t want too much fire, too much oxygen going in here<\/p>\n
’cause we don’t want this chicken to dry out.<\/p>\n
This one is the fire.<\/p>\n
So I’m gonna close it right now<\/p>\n
and have the smoke and the fire.<\/p>\n
The smoke, the fire is at the bottom.<\/p>\n
The smoke is cooking in the top.<\/p>\n
I might have to hose this side down<\/p>\n
’cause like I tell you, I feel this side cooking real fast.<\/p>\n
You see right now, the chicken just got<\/p>\n
to cook a little bit faster just now.<\/p>\n
Prepare for this.<\/p>\n
Decided the chicken is almost cooked.<\/p>\n
30, 45 minutes the most<\/p>\n
and you have your jerk chicken.<\/p>\n
Once you put it on the grill, the hard work is done.<\/p>\n
The fire does it for you.<\/p>\n
Every day, I cook about five, 600 pounds.<\/p>\n
You know more on weekends.<\/p>\n
We’re open six days a week.<\/p>\n
We’re getting ready to start opening seven days now<\/p>\n
’cause the demand, I have people throwing rocks upstairs at<\/p>\n
windows and I gotta please my people.<\/p>\n
You know that’s a lot of work. We are hiring.<\/p>\n
Chicken is coming along.<\/p>\n
You could hear the fire, it’s coming along.<\/p>\n
We wanna turn them.<\/p>\n
We wanna stick it to make sure<\/p>\n
that the heat goes through your chicken.<\/p>\n
You don’t want this side cooking<\/p>\n
and that side not cooking.<\/p>\n
By sticking it with the fork,<\/p>\n
you’re letting all the heat gets in the chicken<\/p>\n
so the chicken could cook thoroughly all through.<\/p>\n
You don’t want one half cooking<\/p>\n
and the other half not cooking.<\/p>\n
You understand what I’m saying?<\/p>\n
And you could tell when your<\/p>\n
chicken is cooked because this one is not cooked.<\/p>\n
It’s heavy. It’s heavy.<\/p>\n
This one is almost there.<\/p>\n
It not because it’s smaller. I can get a bigger piece.<\/p>\n
It’s almost there.<\/p>\n
It’s lighter because the excess water<\/p>\n
or all the excess, whatever it is<\/p>\n
that’s in there, it’s gone.<\/p>\n
Before even by using the tong you can feel the weight.<\/p>\n
There’s no weight on it anymore.<\/p>\n
So even though we taking it off the the high fire,<\/p>\n
it’s still being cooked slowly over here.<\/p>\n
All right, so you know<\/p>\n
that way you get your chicken moist and ready to eat.<\/p>\n
All right, so when chef comes chicken up,<\/p>\n
that cut it in three pieces, right?<\/p>\n
One, two, three.<\/p>\n
All the black you see in it is all those<\/p>\n
marinade did look at it.<\/p>\n
We have a pigeon peas, rice and peas with gungo peas.<\/p>\n
We have an escovitch sauce ready right here<\/p>\n
and we have a nice festival line up.<\/p>\n
Add chicken, as much as you want.<\/p>\n
So I’m gonna add a little sauce on my chicken.<\/p>\n
Alright, just a little.<\/p>\n
You see the Scotch Bonnet, just a little for me.<\/p>\n
Just a little.<\/p>\n
Guys, we been waiting all day, starving.<\/p>\n
[soft upbeat music]<\/p>\n
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm.<\/p>\n
Right now I can taste the pimento, tasting the ginger,<\/p>\n
tasting the spring onions,<\/p>\n
tasting the Scotch Bonnet, just enough.<\/p>\n
My mouth is having a party right now.<\/p>\n
See your rice and peas? Everything.<\/p>\n
Mm-mm.<\/p>\n
[indistinct] Escovitch, not too much.<\/p>\n
I’m in Jamaica right now.<\/p>\n
Everything is perfect. I’m at home.<\/p>\n
In Jamaica, we say use our hands to make fashion.<\/p>\n
That means you might not have what everyone else have,<\/p>\n
but we are gonna use these two hands and make it beautiful.<\/p>\n
And that’s what we’ve done today. It’s more than an honor.<\/p>\n
It’s more than a privilege to be able to share my culture.<\/p>\n
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