Jamaican Curry Chicken

While curried goat is often the more celebrated Jamaican dish, curried chicken is a simpler yet equally delicious staple. Curries appear in the Jamaican diet courtesy of East Indian indentured laborers who were brought from India by the British to work on plantations after the end of slavery. Curried chicken embodies the history of our island and the many settlers who made their way to our shores from foreign lands, all of whom contributed to the cuisine that we call Jamaican today.

Curried chicken makes a regular appearance on cookshop menus, where it is served with rice and peas or white rice and raw vegetables in a “box lunch.” It is also served at home for either lunch or dinner and can be paired with more elaborate accompaniments like steamed jasmine rice, roti, fried plantain, and mango chutney. Curried chicken would also be commonly served at a family Sunday lunch or dinner, with typical Jamaican side dishes like fried or roasted breadfruit, fried plantain, avocado, a big green salad, steamed callaloo, and sliced Scotch bonnet pepper. My sons and their friends especially loved curried chicken when they were growing up, so it was on the dinner menu every other week during their school years. My house was always filled with a crew of rambunctious, hungry teenage boys, and this dish was an easy, nourishing, and satisfying meal for all.

An essential technique in many Jamaican recipes, including this one, is marination. We marinate most meat, poultry, and fish before cooking, contributing to the building of flavor in the dish. Here, the chicken is first rubbed all over with the cut side of a lime or lemon. This is a practice that is standard here in Jamaica, less to reduce bacteria and more to remove what is perceived by Jamaicans as the "raw" flavor of the chicken—one of the culinary sins, along with underseasoning, that Jamaicans would blame on a mediocre cook.

After this acid rubdown, the chicken is seasoned with the curry powder, ginger, onion, garlic, thyme, Scotch bonnet pepper, and pimento (what we call allspice in Jamaica) and left to marinate for at least an hour prior to cooking. (Old-time Jamaican cooks will usually season and marinate from the day before cooking or, at the very least, a few hours before cooking). Jamaican curry powders are typically a premade blend of spices like cumin, coriander, fenugreek, allspice, mustard, anise, and turmeric, hence the signature yellow color, which is quite different from curry powders of other origins.

Once marinated, the chicken is browned in a deep pot and then removed from the oil, after which additional oil, curry powder, and seasonings are sautéed, adding another layer of intensity and spice while developing those flavors and drawing them out into the oil. The chicken is then returned to the pot with all the seasonings, liquid is added, and the dish is left to simmer and reduce, overall a fairly simple process.

Some cooks like to add carrots and potatoes, which this recipe offers as an option and makes for a much heartier meal. The potatoes and carrots would be added when the curry powder and seasonings are sautéed, prior to the addition of the liquid.

Another non-traditional variation, which we personally love and call for in this recipe, is the addition of coconut milk. The coconut milk makes for a thick, creamy, slightly sweet, and rich gravy that coats the chicken beautifully, and is delicious on rice. However you choose to do it, this recipe will likely become a staple in your roster of wholesome and tasty but impressive dinners for guests and family alike.