Paleo Jamaican Stewed Chicken Recipe – Grain Free, Gluten Free, Meatatarian

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Caribbean food, Chicken, delicious, health, Jamaican food, paleo cooking, Paleo Recipes, recipes, weight loss

This recipe is actually so delicious. I got the original recipe from Jamaican It Paleo, a site with Paleo Jamaican Recipes. I actually modified the recipe to fit my taste and saved the “stock/sauce” afterwards for cooking something else. It’s really easy to make, and as I said earlier, it’s absolutely delicious. I’m a lazy chef. I only like to cook once a week, so I cook all my foods at once and stick it in the fridge. Also, I like cooking things that are simple! Please don’t waste my time with 23 ingredients, each with a step where I have to wait 20 minutes. To help the cooking process go a lot faster, I always prep and marinate over night. This not only saves me a lot of stress, it also makes the food really juicy. You can eat these stew chicken with vegetables, a salad, avocado, just by itself, or anyway you like it. It’s always good to refrigerate the stock (the liquid part at the when the chicken is done) instead and using the stock for another dish. Refrigerating the stock allows the fat to solidify at the top, then you can scoop out the fat and toss it…and use the stock later on. Anyway, the recipe and steps are included below…The photos are the steps in order. My photos don’t do the dish justice. The chicken was really delicious. I just suck at plating. 

INGREDIENTS 

• 3lb of chicken thighs or legs. I didn’t actually weigh my chicken. I just used 4 pieces of drumsticks with the thighs attached. It’s recommended to use drumsticks, legs, or thighs because the bone in the chicken makes it juicer. I’ve tried with breasts, and in my opinion, the thighs and legs taste better. 
• 1 tsp. of sea salt, kosher salt, Celtic salt, or any salt
• 1 tsp. of freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp. allspice (it’s best to use allspice, but if you don’t have it, you can use equal parts of cinnamon and nutmeg…as well as pimento berries if you have any)
• 1 onion (chopped)
• 3 scallions (green onions) (chopped)
• 1 scotch bonnet pepper (chopped and seeded). You can leave the seeds in and even use more scotch bonnet depending on how spicy you want it. 
• 1 green pepper (chopped)
• 3 cloves of garlic (minced/grated)
• 1 tbsp. ginger (grated) I didn’t actually measure 1 tbsp of ginger. I just cut about an inch thick and grated that.
• 2 tsp. of dried thyme
• 2 tablespoons of coconut aminos/gluten free tamari/ reduced sodium soy sauce or normal soy sauce if you have neither of the two. I used gluten free tamari and only 1.5 tbsp
• 1tbsp. coconut oil/ghee/lard...just not vegetable oils (olive, grapeseed…etc). I show both grassfed ghee and organic coconut oil but I only used ghee. 
• 1 cup of water for later
• 1 sprig fresh thyme – Optional
• 1 lime/lemon – Optional
• A dash of Cool Runnings All Purpose Seasoning NO M.S.G – Optional
• 2 dashes of Mr. Goudas Jamaican curry or any hot curry powder – Optional
• Canned or soaked and cooked broad beans/lima beans can be added to this recipe. Note: beans, especially dried beans, aren’t Paleo. 

STEPS

1. Gather all your ingredients
2. Peel the skin off the chicken. If you’re strict paleo, you can eat skin…but this tastes better without
3. Wash your chicken with warm water
4. Make little slashes (with a knife) or poke holes (with a fork) in your chicken. This is so the spices and juices can really enter the meat.
5. Juice a lime or half a lemon into the chicken. I always do this because acidity helps kill bacteria. It’s more of a sanitary thing
6. Chop all your vegetables 
7. Season the chicken by rubbing in all the ingredients except the oil and water
8. Let the chicken marinate for at least 2 hours. Overnight marinate is the best. I’ve used this recipe with both the 2 hour marinate (I was really hungry) and the overnight…the overnight tastes way better. 
9. Heat your ghee, fat, or oil in a pot. 
10. Remove only the chicken to fry in the oil and leave behind the vegetable marinade (optional, you can add the green peppers when the dish is almost complete. The green peppers taste amazing when added at this point but they are soft. I like crunchy vegetables so I add them towards the end)
11. Brown evenly on each side on high heat for about 5 minutes each.
12. Add the remaining vegetable marinade, cover the pot and allow it to stew in its own juices for about 20 minutes on low medium heat (about 5). At this point, the juices in the chicken will begin to come out and you will have some liquid in the pot
13. If using the lima beans, add them at this time.
14. Add about 1 cup of water and simmer for another 30-35 minutes on low—stirring only occasionally

Spices. I didn’t use the organic coconut oil for frying. I used ghee instead

Spices (except oil), vegetables, and chicken. I used 3 fresh thyme sprigs and dried thyme. Don’t use that much! Just use the dried thyme. It tastes better

Removed the skin as best as I could, slashed chicken

Juicing lemon into chicken. Watch out for seeds, they make things bitter

Chopped veggies

An “inch” of peeled chicken. I don’t know if it’s actually an inch.

Put all the veggies and spices on chicken

Mixed up marinate and refrigerated

Browning each side of the chicken. Notice the juices starting to form. You’ll also notice that there’s some veggies on the chicken…I was too lazy to pick it off

Look at the juices

Adding vegetable marinate

Cover pot and let it stew

15 min in: Look at how much juice there is

20 minutes later: So much juice from just letting it stew!

After adding one cup of water. Then you let it simmer for about 30 minutes. I didn’t wait that long before I ate!

My lunch: steamed cauliflower, half of an avocado, pan fried mushrooms (no oil/ghee/lard), and stewed chicken. Yeah, I suck at plating, but it was yummy