I like to invent new foods. Today, combining something I saw on food network with a friend’s gift of assorted Jamaican jerk spice marinades, I came up with an interesting sauce to put on some jerk chicken. I cut up a whole chicken and marinated it over night in a mixture of bottled jerk sauce and soy sauce to thin it out. I then smoked the chicken for about 4 hours in the BGE over an aluminum pan at about 225 degrees, brushing it every 30-60 minutes with more marinade. When the chicken was done, I took all the pan drippings - mostly spices and oil from the rendered chicken fat, mixed it with the remaining leftover marinade, and heated it to a slow boil for 5 minutes to kill anything in the marinade after the raw chicken sat in it for about 14 hours. I cooled it a bit and pureed it with a ripe Haas avocado and enough heavy cream to create a thick and barely pourable sauce. I thought it was excellent. The guy who gave me the Jerk sauce (half Barbadian and half Puerto Rican, not afraid of hot spices) flipped out, thought it was the greatest sauce he ever had, and put it on everything we had for dinner, from the smoked jerk chicken to the brisket sandwich with coleslaw on a brioche bun. The technique (pureeing a ripe avocado with spicy drippings and then heavy cream to thin it) worked well. It may have a name and maybe I am just late to the party, but I will do it again.
I have never made it with pan drippings but do make an avacado lime cilantro crema as a sauce for all kinds of grilled things. Of course there is usually a jalapeño floating around in there.
That’s a thought. I have a few limes left over and a jalapeno from some ceviche I made on Saturday.
It had some apparent sweetness, but I think it was from the thyme. Like a GG Riesling appearing to be sweet even though the RS is < 1 gm per liter.
The key for me was the technique of pureeing the avocado with the “flavor” to give it a good mouth feel without being oily, and then adding the cream for richness. I intend to try it next with pan drippings from a Cajun Brined Roast Turkey. Why? Because my mother never made gravy with turkey and every attempt I have tried has failed. I think that the avocado will act as a thickener better than a roux, but it may be too thick, hence the cream to thin it out. An excellent use for my Vitamix.