For many Jamaican families in the U.S., the traditional baked turkey will not take center stage at this week’s Thanksgiving dinner. Instead, it will be replaced by jerk roasted turkey.
It started a few years ago. I suspect, because somebody got bored with the traditionally baked turkey and decided to add little kick to it. When you think about it, jerking a turkey makes sense. If you can jerk a chicken, why not jerk a turkey?
Well, that idea has caught on. Several Jamaican restaurants now prepare and sell jerk roasted turkeys on order.
Type ‘jerk turkey’ or ‘jerk roast turkey’ on your computer and the search will return several pages with recipes, how-to information, and videos. You can even buy a jerk roast turkey from Nieman Marcus and jerk turkey from Boars Head.
I’ve never had jerk turkey, mainly because I don’t like turkey. I’d curious to give it a try but it won’t be this Thanksgiving. I’ve been invited to join a family for dinner and I expect the turkey will be baked and accompanied by the normal Jamaican fare – curried goat, jerk chicken or pork, escoveitch fish, rice and peas, etc.
If you’d like to try making jerk turkey for your Thanksgiving this year, here’s a recipe I found at Saveur.com.
Nigel Spence, one of my favorite Jamaican chefs, does a deep fry jerk turkey and has created this video demonstration for how to make it. Chef Nigel owns a restaurant, Ripe, in Mount Vernon, where he makes and sells his jerk turkey. Deep frying a turkey is best left to professionals or cooks with a lot of experience.
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Happy Thanksgiving!
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That does sound delicious! I’m hoping for some turkey for Christmas
Hope you do, Nancie. Is it easy to get it there?
that looks like a yummy and different take on the traditional turkey…would love to try this !
This is such a great idea and it makes sense to jerk a Turkey like every other meat. Hope you are enjoying the switch of locations.
Wishing you a very Happy Thanksgiving Season!
Eliz
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family, Marcia!
Oh my gosh, can’t you just please ship some to me, Marcia???? Happy Thanksgiving!
Sounds delicious–I’ll be printing this one off, though it sure would be nice to simply order a Jerk Roast Turkey to go, from an expert! I look forward to hearing about Jamaican Christmas specialties!
Seriously you don’t like turkey. How can that be? I can only imagine how flavourful a jerk turkey would be. Interesting how it’s starting to catch on.
Sounds like an interesting recipe, maybe someday we’ll give it a try.
Oh. My. God. I think I’ll make these and then proceed to eat them all one sitting!
I’ve never been a huge turkey fan – but I would love to try this!
Hope you do, Jess!
That’d be a lot of food for one sitting!
Thanks for stopping by, Bai!
Hahaha, I’m not sure. I love the stuffing though and make a mean soup with the carcass.
Unfortunately, I didn’t make it Mike. But I’ll definitely send you some if I do.
Belated Happy Thanksgiving to you too!
Hahaha, I wish I could recommend one in Toronto. I’ll check with my friends might be a restaurant (or an expert) who does it there.
Yes, Christmas is definitely a special holiday for us, much more than Thanksgiving is.
I think I’d have to agree with the Jamaicans, the traditional baked turkey can be really boring. I might have to go out of my way to experience some good jerk roasted turkey sometime before next Thanksgiving, because it sounds great. The recipe doesn’t seem too bad, but I tend to ruin anything I try to cook. This year for Thanksgiving, a friend smoked an entire turkey, and that was incredible. He said it took a while, but it was fantastic.
I’ve heard the smoked turkey is also fabulous, Richard, but haven’t tried it.
Would love to hear what you think.