Caribbean Rice with Spicy Jerk Chicken

~ Level: medium-hard ~ Time: 45 mins ~ Budget: medium.

I discovered this dish on a cooking night with my housemates. The theme was "Caribbean" so everyone came up with a different side dish to make it into one big meal. It was my first experience with the Caribbean kitchen and I was blown away. I combined a few of the dishes that I loved the most into a complete meal and now prepare this often when I cook for a big group of people. Always a huge hit. And whenever there are rice leftovers, I love to reheat it in the morning and place a poached egg on top. DE-LISH!

Caribbean Rice with Spicy Jerk Chicken

Ingredients ~ 4 servings

For the Rice:

• 1 cup rice

• 1 cup coconut milk

• 1 cup water

• 3 tbsp coconut flakes

• 2 tsp salt

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 2 scallions, chopped

• 1 large carrot, finely diced

• ½ tsp black pepper

• 1 tsp ginger, cut up very thin

• 1 tbsp thyme

• ½ pineapple, fresh, finely diced

• juice of ½ lime

• 70g cashew nuts, coarsely chopped

• 4-6 tbsp soy sauce

• cilantro as preferred

For the chicken:

• 2 chicken breasts

• ½ pineapple, fresh

• 1 red bell pepper

• 1 red onion

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• Jamaican jerk seasoning (store-bought or home made)

For the home made jerk seasoning:

• ½ tbsp onion powder

• ½ tbsp garlic powder

• 1 tsp cayenne pepper

• 1 tsp smoked paprika powder

• ½ tsp allspice

• 1 tsp salt

• ½ tsp black pepper

• ¼ tsp red pepper flakes

• ¼ tsp cumin powder

• ¼ tsp nutmeg

• ¼ tsp cinnamon

• ½ tbsp brown sugar

• ½ tsp dried thyme

• ½ tbsp dried parsley

Method

1. Add the rice to a sauce pan together with the coconut milk and the water. Add the coconut flakes and salt. With the heat turned to the highest level, bring this to a boil, give it a good stir and then turn the heat to the lowest level. Leave it to simmer for 18 minutes with the lid on. Remove from heat, stir, and leave it to sit for an additional 10 minutes with the lid on. This step can be done a day in advance and the rice can be left in the fridge overnight.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan. Sauté the scallions and carrot, sprinkle with pepper. Add the ginger, thyme, pineapple, lime juice and cashews. Stir for about 3 minutes. Then add the coconut rice and mix everything together. After another 3 minutes of heat, add half of the soy sauce, mix, and spread out the rice over the whole surface of the pan at medium heat. Leave it like that for 5 minutes so that the bottom can get crispy. Be careful not to burn the rice. After the 5 minutes, stir the rice up again, add the rest of the soy sauce, spread the rice out again and leave it for another 5 minutes. You can repeat this step one or two more times, depending on how crispy you like it.

3. In the mean time, preheat your oven to 220°C and line an oven dish with parchment paper. Cut the chicken in long pieces, the pineapple in big chunks, the pepper in long strips and the onion in wedges. In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients together with the olive oil and jerk seasoning. Then transfer to the oven dish and bake for about 15-20 minutes, depending on your oven. Start checking the inside of the chicken after 10 minutes. As soon as the meat is no longer red inside, it's ready to take out.

4. Serve the rice together with the oven dish for a delicious Caribbean style meal.

Serving suggestion for the rice: pineapple bowl

Wine pairing

Pinot Gris is the ultimate match for this dish. It generally pairs well with chicken, but also is well known to go well with spicy food, like this jerk seasoning. The complexity of the Pinot Gris grape also definitely matches that of the dish.