If you haven’t caught wind of it, I’m on vacation down in the Outer Banks this week. I was charged with cooking dinner for the family the first two evenings. 
I was told that I would have a gas grill available for my use. Haha! Think again. No, what I had available wasn’t even a type of kettle grill with a cover, but one of those open charcoal grills like you find at the state parks. Needless to say, I had to scramble a bit to make things work.
Thankfully, the local Harris Teeter had enough fixings to make things not horrible. While they did not have a chimney starter, they did have both lump charcoal and some Match Light charcoal. The point being, that you want to avoid lighter fluid if at all possible and if not, minimize its use in any way you can. Since there was no chimney starter available for purchase, the idea was to get a core of the Match Light charcoal going, and then throw a bunch of non-petroleum impregnated charcoal on it.
This also changed the menu a bit. The first night was still OK as I planned on doing NY strip steaks with a garlic butter melted over the top, but the second day posed a problem as I wanted to do scallops with a dipping sauce. My solution was to adopt a recipe that I had recently shared with my friends over at The Huddle to use on this grill. The full dinner was Jamaican Jerk Chicken with Forbidden Rice and green beans but I’m just going to share the chicken recipe with you today.
Jamaican Jerk Chicken
Paste
2 scotch bonnet or jalapeno peppers de-stemmed and seeded, roughly chopped
4 scallions roughly chopped
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 Tbs red wine vinegar
1 Tbs finely chopped fresh thyme
1 Tbs soy sauce
1 Tbs light brown sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cloves
Combine all the Paste ingredients in a food processor or blender and process until smooth. (JC: I personally like using a hand blender but you should use whatever you have and are comfortable with)
With a sharp knife (JC: You should always keep your knives sharp, but that is a topic worthy of a post all by itself. Just do it) make parallel cuts on both sides of the chicken breast about 1 inch apart and 1/4 inch deep. Turn the breast 90 degrees and make the cuts again to make a cross hatch pattern.
Using a spoon, especially if you used scotch bonnets or habaneros, spread the paste alll over the chicken, pushing it inside the cuts. Cover and refrigerate for three hours.
Grill the chicken skin side down first over direct medium heat for 8 to 12 minutes, turning once. (JC: these instructions work well for a covered grill. For the uncovered version I used, double the cooking time and always check that there is no pink left inside and that the chicken is a 170 degrees Fahrenheit for an internal meat temperature)
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