One of my favorite things about visiting the Caribbean every winter is getting to experience the amazing flavors that come through in their jerk seasonings. While there are a ton of different ingredients that go into making a good jerk sauce, none of them are really that complicated or hard to find, so there was no reason we couldn’t do something similar for our wings on a random Wednesday night.
This recipe started with a little bit of margarine and about half of a white onion diced as finely as I could manage without breaking out the food processor. Then I added five cups of water and about 3.5 cups of ketchup to form the base of the sauce. There was also small amounts of Frank’s Red Hot, Worcestershire sauce, and fresh-squeezed lemon juice involved.
After that, it was time to add some seasoning. I started with the basics like black pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. Then I got a bit more interesting with ground cloves, thyme, allspice, nutmeg, and sage.
I expect this concoction to somewhat resemble the flavors I had experienced over a few recent trips to the islands, but I was shocked at just how closely it matched my actual experience. This one is definitely a winner.
