Jerk-Spiced Chicken and Rice
A dry jerk rub carried in a bag, poured over instant rice and pouched chicken.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 120
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 10 min
- total time
- 15 min
- water
- 400 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Car camping
- Bikepacking
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Instant rice | 1 cup dry | the parboiled kind that rehydrates in five minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Pouched chicken | 5 oz | foil pouch, not canned, no water to drain |
| Dried thyme | 1 tsp | |
| Black pepper | 1 tsp | |
| Ground cinnamon | 1/2 tsp | |
| Ground nutmeg | 1/4 tsp | |
| Ground cloves | 1/4 tsp | measure carefully, cloves take over |
| Garlic powder | 1 tsp | stands in for fresh garlic |
| Onion powder | 1 tsp | stands in for fresh onion |
| Crushed red pepper or dried jalapeno flakes | 1/2 tsp | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Honey | 1 tbsp | a packet, or squeezed from a small bottle |
| Soy sauce | 1 tbsp | packets from a takeout drawer |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | dropper bottle |
| Lime juice | 1 tsp | a packet, or a pinch of citric acid plus dried lime zest |
Method
- Boil 400 ml of water. Stir in the spice bag and the salt so the spices bloom in the water rather than sitting dry on top.
- Dump in the rice, stir once, cover, and pull it off the heat. Wait five minutes.
- Open the chicken pouch and fold the meat in, breaking up the big pieces with your spoon.
- Add the honey, soy sauce, oil, and lime. Stir hard. Let it sit two more minutes so the rice takes on the liquid.
- Taste before adding more pepper flakes. The heat climbs as it sits.
Jerk is normally wet work: fresh garlic, onion, and hot peppers blitzed into a marinade, then hours on a fire. None of that survives a pack. What does survive is the spice half of the equation, which is where most of the character lives anyway. Thyme, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, and pepper carry fine as powder, and garlic and onion powder cover the aromatics without a cutting board.
The wet ingredients get cut down to four small carries: honey, soy sauce, oil, and lime. Honey balances the pepper, soy replaces the salt-and-savory depth a long marinade would have built, and the lime keeps the whole thing from tasting flat and heavy. Bloom the spices in boiling water before the rice goes in. Dumped on at the end, ground spice tastes dusty.
Packing
Premix every dry spice into one small bag at home so camp is a single pour. Honey, soy, oil, and lime ride together in a small zip bag; if one leaks, it leaks on the others and not on your quilt.
Variations
- Swap the chicken pouch for a foil packet of salmon, or for a cup of dried textured soy protein rehydrated with the rice.
- Instant couscous instead of rice cuts the cook time to zero, just add water and cover.
- A spoonful of tomato powder gives it more body if you want something closer to a stew.
https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/jamaican-jerk-chicken-recipe