Jamaican Chicken Fricasée

This adapted from a version in The Best of Caribbean Cooking by Elizabeth Lambert Ortiz. It’s a terrific book and very comprehensive, one of the best introductions to Caribbean food I’ve found so far. I’ve made a few changes to her original, though, to make it more in keeping with a version we ate at Freddie’s cousins’ place in Discovery Bay.

Don’t be worried by the scotch bonnet: as chillies go, they pack quite a punch, but by leaving it whole you infuse the dish with a much more subtle spice that you’d expect.

1½–2 kg chicken, jointed into 8

4 garlic cloves, crushed

2 teaspoons paprika

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1–2 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 large onion, chopped

12 whole cherry tomatoes

1 red scotch bonnet, left whole with the stem on

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 bay leaf

a few sprigs of fresh thyme

125ml chicken stock

Mix the garlic, paprika, ginger, salt and pepper together, and rub them into the  chicken pieces. Refrigerate, covered, over night.

When you’re ready to cook, scrape the dry rub off the chicken and set aside. Pat the chicken pieces dry with kitchen towel, and season them with a pinch of salt. Then heat the oil in a heavy frying pan and sauté the chicken pieces over a medium hob until they are golden brown. Transfer them to a heavy, covered casserole. Then sauté the onions in the frying pan until golden.

When the onions are ready, add the scraped-off dry-rub, and cook with the onion for a minute or so, until you can really smell the spices. Pour in the stock and bubble it up, scraping up any cooking residues from the bottom of the pan.

Add it all to the casserole, along with the tomatoes, the herbs and the scotch bonnet.

Simmer the fricasée, covered, until the chicken is tender and cooked through. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside. Then, over a high heat, reduce the juices by half. Discard the scotch bonnet, pour the juices over the chicken, and serve with rice and peas.