Jerk Pork
Pork shoulder in a scotch bonnet and allspice marinade, cooked slowly over smoke until the outside is black and the inside gives.
Photograph credit: Jerk Pork Plate Lunch from Burning Spear, Shreveport, LA by Shreveport-Bossier: Louisiana's Other Side · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr
Allspice — pimento — is the backbone and it goes in three ways: ground in the marinade, whole berries crushed into the fire, and ideally pimento wood on the coals. Scotch bonnet is not interchangeable with any other chilli either; it is fruity as well as hot and the fruit is half the flavour. Cook it slow and away from the direct flame, or the sugar in the marinade burns before the pork is done.
What People Ask
How long does Jerk Pork take to make?
25 minutes of preparation and 1 hour of cooking, plus 6 hours of marinating, so allow 7 hours 25 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 6.
Jerk Pork: Step by Step
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Blend the scotch bonnets, spring onions, garlic, ginger, ground allspice, thyme, sugar, soy sauce (or tamari), lime juice, oil, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper to a coarse paste.
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Score the pork slabs and rub the paste into every surface and cut.
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Refrigerate 6 hours.
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Build a charcoal fire and bank the coals to one side.
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Crush the whole allspice berries and scatter them over the coals.
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Lay the pork on the cool side of the grill, not over the coals.
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Cover and cook 60 minutes, turning every 15 minutes.
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Move the pork over the direct heat for the last 5 minutes to blacken the outside.
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Rest 10 minutes on a board.
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Chop into rough pieces with a cleaver, through the bark, and serve.
Related guides: Prep, cook and total time · Ingredient substitutions.
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Tips That Matter
- Indirect heat for the hour, direct for the last five minutes.
- Allspice berries on the coals.
- Chop it rough through the bark — jerk is not carved.
Changing the Recipe
- Out of spring onions? A small regular onion, finely sliced, or a few chives stirred in at the end both cover the job.
- Dried chilli flakes can stand in for the chillies. Heat varies a great deal between chillies and between jars, so start with a small pinch and add more to taste.
- Lemon is the everyday swap for lime in this kind of dish — the acidity plays the same role even though the flavour is not identical.
What to Serve With It
Rice and peas · Festival dumplings · Red Stripe
Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Jamaican Fry Dumplings.
Leftovers and Storage
Keeps 3 days refrigerated and is excellent cold. Freezes 3 months.
Jerk Pork Nutrition Facts
Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: part of the energy comes from foods, or weights per item, with no recorded source. How the figures are worked out.
Gluten-free when made with tamari rather than light soy sauce.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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