Jamaican Jerk Sauce

Menu: Barbadian Chicken with Jamaican Jerk Sauce; Moroccan Toasted Couscous with Fruit; Seared Zucchini

Lessons learned:

1. My kids won't even try plums or apricots.  That totally bummed me out.
2. I think I just need to admit that I'm not a couscous person.  That should be fine, since it's not a whole grain anyway.
3. This chicken would be much better unbreaded and grilled.  The sauce is great.

It often happens that I end up making multiple recipes for the first time on the same night.  I guess I'm just taking advantage of the fact that I have time to do that these days, because very soon that will not be true.  So tonight I tried two, or two-and-a-half, recipes from The Whole Foods Market Cookbook, which I recently borrowed from a friend (thanks, Heather!).

I was really excited to try this Barbadian Chicken and accompanying Jerk Sauce (I'm choosing to refrain from any bad "jerk" humor; you're welcome).  Once again, as soon as the kids found out we were having chicken, that's all they could talk about.  I spent most of my cooking time deflecting urgent pleas for "some sicken."  Here's how it turned out:

To be honest, I was kind of disappointed because I don't cook meat very often, and this was just so-so.  I mean, it was... fine.  But there are so many things I could have done with this that would have turned out much better; at least I think so.  I guess if you really love breading on chicken, this was a healthy way to get it.  But these chicken tenders would have been much tastier just pan-fried, grilled, or even broiled, because the jerk sauce marinade was quite good and worked very well as a dipping sauce, too.  The breading was just unnecessary.

The couscous was one of those recipes that sounds really good to me, but the flavors somehow just don't combine into something I'm excited about eating.  The basic idea was to toast some Israeli couscous in the oven, then cook it with boiling water and turmeric (that's what gives it that golden color).  Toss in some apricots and plums (the original recipe called for dried fruit, but it's summertime!) and chopped pistachios, then dress it with a really fun-sounding citrus dressing made with delicious flavors like cardamom, cinnamon, and honey.  What can I say?  It just didn't work for me (or anyone else here).  But it looks kind of pretty:

I'm really interested in doing more with yogurt.  I thought it combined really well with the jerk sauce.  A few weeks ago, I tried making some fried green tomatoes and decided they needed a dip, so I combined some peach yogurt and Worcestershire sauce.  It doesn't sound good, but it was!  I need to keep some plain yogurt around and do more experiments like that.  For now, here's the recipe for the sauce.

Jamaican Jerk Sauce, adapted from The Whole Foods Market Cookbook

1 jalapeno pepper, halved and seeded

4 scallions, or a handful of chives

3 garlic cloves, peeled

A 2" piece of fresh peeled ginger

About 4 sprigs of fresh thyme

2 teaspoons dried allspice

Juice from 2 limes

1/2 cup ketchup

1/2 cup pineapple juice

Put everything in the food processor and press go.

This makes about 2 cups; combine it with plain yogurt to make it a dip.