Be excellent to each other! (serve coleslaw)

If Bill and Ted have taught us anything its that Genghis Khan likes Twinkies. The other possibly more important thing they have taught us is a philosophy, a moto to live ours lives by... "Be excellent to each other".

The way I choose to honor this motto might not be how you'd imagine, I don't badger people in the streets to give me their money for charity or play guitar at the orphanage. What I do is simple, I make coleslaw, a lot of coleslaw. Whenever and where ever I can for anyone and everyone that's hungry for every meal that would be sorry not to have it. It is my duty and my pleasure.

On its own you could say slaw is boring, but without it a meal could be lost. It can be the sharpener for pulled pork or the perfect extinguisher for my spicy jerk chicken. To me it enhances a meal, be it grilled fish, slow cooked pork or fiery chicken.

There is one rule I have about eating slaw, you must have it with hot sauce. There is something about the hot chilli sauciness mixing with the crisp, raw, coolingness that is a match made in heaven. Let's just say I am a fan, in fact as I write this I am consuming coleslaw, ahh you might say, but you are writing about slaw so of course you are eating it to remind yourself of its beauty, but the chances are I'd be eating it anyway, I keep the cabbage industry going single handedly. 

Let's get down to the nitty gritty...

The ingredients:

• 1 tbsp cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 4/5 tbsp mayonnaise 
• 2 carrots
• half a red cabbage
• 1 tsp suger
• 1 onion (very optional)

Grate the carrot and the cabbage in a decent sized bowl. Most recipes say to finely chop the cabbage but I like the cabbage grated so that I don't get long bits falling off my fork. Next finely chop the onion and chuck it in with the carrot and cabbage. I actually think slaw is better without raw onion, it means you dont have that repeating, overpowering taste in your mouth for the rest of the day and you get even more refreshing, crisp coleslaw.

Once you have the veg mixed in a bowl nows the time to add the magic ingredients, cider vinegar, olive oil, suger and finally the mayonnaise. If you are mad about mayo then give the mixture a taste and by all means add a little more than 5 tablespoons, it's your coleslaw!

Give it all a good mix and voila, you have a cool, fresh, delicious side that almost any meal would be lucky to have.

Coleslaw is more than just a side dish, it is the ultimate finishing touch. It is the Mona Lisa's smile or Stone Cold Steve Austin winning a wrestling match with a Stone Cold Stunner. 

I am evangelical about slaw, I love it and everyone should be knocking this up at home for friends and family, remember "Be excellent to each other". Amen Bill and Ted!

It doesn't mean a thing if you aint got that Ting.

(or jerk chicken part two)

Right, hopefully you have made the marinade for the jerk chicken and its currently in the fridge working its magic.

The 'hard' work is over, however as stunning as the jerk chicken is, there are some wicked sides and accompaniments that can really make this dish special. We will leave the rice and peas and coleslaw for a different post and concentrate on the accompaniments.

I didn't just fall in love with cooking when i went to the Caribbean I fell in love with hot sauce as well. It sounds ridiculous to even to me, but it kinda changed my life. The world of cooking opened up and with it, hot sauces. The choices are almost endless, with different countries specialising in different chilies, they come in a rainbow of colours and a such varying heat they deserve their own unique scale of measurement called the Scoville.

Hot sauce is a must with this dish and it really should be a West Indian hot sauce. The one you see a lot, and it seems to me you can get almost everywhere, is the Encona West Indian Hot Pepper Sauce. It has that beautiful mouth watering taste that all good Caribbean hot sauces should have, that can only be described as sweet fire.

What better beverage to have in your hand to try and fire fight your jerk chicken, than Ting. I like to think of it as the Caribbean's answer to Orangina. It is fizzy, proudly made with Jamaican grapefruit (loads of sugar) and love... probably. 

The tart grapefruity tang of Ting and the sweet fire of the hot sauce might not be everyones' cup of tea, but believe me when I say it's authentic, delicious and more than worth a try. Oh and you can buy both from Tesco's (other supermarkets are available).

Make sure you have these two accompaniments to hand when eating jerk chicken.  If it wasn't for the fact it's rained all summer, you might be forgiven for thinking you were in the Caribbean.

I dont like Jerk Chicken. I LOVE IT!

This is my very delicious not to mention closely guarded, incredibly secret recipe for jerk chicken. Considering no one ever reads this blog I guess this is the safest place to keep it. 


I have been lucky enough to work in the Caribbean (pronounced Caar-Rib-Iain) twice and one trip we were hopping between six islands, but the best food was alway the jerk chicken in Barbados. 


The first of these trips I was a green, wet behind the ears soundy. The furthest from home I had been was main land Europe, and boarding the Virgin Atlantic plane I could hardly wipe the grin off my face, I was getting paid to go to Barbados!

I was not to be disappointed, Barbados is a vibrant, exciting, noisy island where there is always something happening. We filmed in the two top posh restaurants The Lone Star and The Cliff, not to mention we were treated to a brilliant night out at a transvestite cabaret by a well known TV celeb. But I was happiest after we had wrapped filming, watching the sunset, sitting by the waters edge on a bench eating jerk chicken, rice and peas, washed down with a cold bottle of Banks.  

Cooked in a small wooden shack on an old bbq at the shore of the Caribbean Sea it was like the best cliche ever. The flavours of that jerk chicken was like nothing I had experienced before. Sweet and spicy with a killer kick of scotch bonnet pepper, my mind was blown forever and I was hooked.

Thinking back, this is where my love for cooking was born, I was inspired by these flavours and had to find recipes and recreate the fiery chicken. But not just the jerk chicken, I now had a taste for the exotic and far flung - there was no turning back.

Anyhoo, lets stop rambling on and get to the business end of this blog, the recipe...


Ingredients:

• 500 grams of chicken thighs and legs
• 3 cloves of garlic
• half an onion
• 2 inches of fresh ginger
• 2 tbsp of fresh lime
• 4 tbsp of white wine vinger
• 2 tbsp of olive oil
• 3 tbsp of soy sauce
• 1 tsp of cayenne
• 1 tsp of paprika 
• half tsp pepper
• 1 tsp thyme
• half tsp all spice
• 2 scotch bonnet peppers

The first thing to do is grab the chopping board and peel finely chop the garlic, halve a peeled onion, peel and grate the ginger and carefully finely chop the scotch bonnet peppers, removing the seeds. I would in all seriousness wear thin disposable pastic gloves to chop the scotch bonnets, as these are serious customers and can burn your fingers! We've all heard the 'funny' jokes about not going to the loo after chopping chilies, well I cleaned and put in my contact lenses the day after chopping these bad boys and it felt like being pepper sprayed.

You could ask, why use these things if there are so lethal?! Its an easy answer, you just get the most fantastic sweet flavour from a chilli that is over ten times hotter that a jalapeno. However, don't worry if you don't like things too hot, you can substitute with chilli flakes or easier to find chilli peppers.

The easiest way to combine these ingredients is to chuck them all in to a food processor. Make sure you have sorted out the garlic, ginger and scotch bonnets as food mixers have a habit of leaving these in big chunks.

So blend all of the ingredients together and you will get a marinade that not only gives the meat its amazing taste but keeps the chicken tender. Put the chicken in to a bowl and cover with your mixture, I try and marinade in a fridge over night, but just do it for as long as you can.


Take the chicken out of the fridge an hour before you want to cook it, to bring it up to room temperature. Jerk chicken is best cooked over hot coals on a bbq but generally speaking I cook it in the oven. Preheat the oven to 200c and cooking for an hour should do it. Hopefully you will have dark crispy skin and beautiful moist meat beneath. 


I really hope you enjoy this as much as do and it inspires you like it did me. Oh, and that it blows your socks off!


Serve with the traditional rice and peas, coleslaw and it is imperative you have some proper West Indian hot sauce on the table. I have a lot to say on accompaniments for this dish, but I will give more details on the sides for this in separate blog posts.