Grilled chicken, fried plantains and a side of Pikliz. Could you really ask for a better combination? That's what's usually up on a good Saturday night, except you can also add to the list; Kabrit, tassot, marinade, akra, pate code, and the list could just go on and onnn.
It took me a lot of time to come up with the best way to honour this perfect marinade. At first I was going for a delicious fried chicken burger:
I mean, this looks HELLA legit, and it tasted super good, but didn't really feel like the type of food I would usually be inclined to cook, definitely not lite enough, not my vibe hahah.
Then I thought, no need to complicate something so simple, why not just make a grilled chicken burger, with a beautiful fennel and cucumber salad.
It was good but not me. I was not even eating bread during that period.
Then in May, I realized, if I'm lost, all I need to do is go back to BASICS.
Chicken + Plantain + Pikliz
And it was so uncomplicated, the chicken just spoke for itself!
I posted the marinade reel in March, but I've actually been working on it since February!! So, after almost 8 months of waiting, here's the recipe!
Get your apron on and let's gooo!
Ingredients
3 Chicken breast (cut in half and cleaned)
1/2 Scotch bonnet pepper
15g Cilantro (stem included)
9 Garlic cloves
2tbsp Lime juice
2tbsp Soy sauce
4tbsp Honey
1/2tbsp Salt
1/2tbsp Pepper
1tbsp Chili powder
1 Lemon (juice)
PS: The first step is cleaning the chicken, the method will be at the bottom of the page, or check out my Haitian chicken recipe to see the steps on how to clean chicken.
Directions
-Preheat the oven at 400F.
-Finely mince the scotch bonnet WITHOUT the seeds.
-Chop the cilantro.
-Grate the garlic with a microplane.
-Add all of these plus the rest of the ingridients on the chicken.
-Mix well.
-Mark the chicken on the grill (2 minutes each side) then put in the oven for 10 minutes.
-In the meantime, put the excess marinade left in the bowl and transfer in a pot.
-Boil until it's reduced at the right consistency.
-Take that beautiful juicy chicken out of the oven, dip it in the sauce, or if you ain't scared of the spice, pour some over the chicken and savour this amazingness you've been waiting for!
What you need to clean the chicken
Chicken breasts (already cut in half)
Water (boiled)
1/2cup White vinegar
1 Lemon
How to get it clean!
-Put the chicken in a bowl, with the vinegar.
-Mix so that all the chicken is well soaked in there.
-Boil some water.
-Cut the lemon in 4 and juice it in a separate bowl, keep both the juice and the juiced wedges.
-Put the lemon juice aside.
-Rub each piece of chicken with the inside part of the lemon wedges.
-Throw the wedges out, and pour the boiled water on the chicken.
-Now get rid of the water and vinegar in the bowl
-Keep the lemon juice for the marinade.
XTRA STUFF!
-If you are not really comfortable eating spicy food, you can skip the scotch bonnet, (the recipe won't be what it's supposed to be, but it will still taste amazing)!
-If you want to try the fried chicken burger, only difference is I tossed it in cornstarch, then fried it and finished it off in the oven.
-If you want to try out the fennel and cucumber salad, you can find it in my reels section on Instagram!
-You can also try many different recipes with that same marinade, check out the cauliflower Mac n cheese I made on instagram.
-To see exactly how I clean the chicken and just how I do the marinade, you can check out the reel I made.
-Last but not least, like I always say, my advice is to marinate the chicken overnight, if not, at least for 30 minutes.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!