Some Like It Hot*

I love spicy food.

I’ve always enjoyed a dish that can clear out your sinuses, as does the Hubster. His tolerance for it is even higher than mine–he often asks for things to be a little spicier than even I like it. When we go out for Japanese food I’m pretty sure that there is so much wasabi in his soya sauce that it’s basically solid. haha

Since we learned about his new food sensitivities in the summer, I’ve been experimenting with recipes from around the world. I find that so much of Canadian / American food is drenched in dairy or wheat, so I’ve been learning how to cook Thai, Japanese, and lately–Indian. I found a recipe for this amazing spiced basmati rice with veggies,  and I’ve been trying out different chicken recipes to go with it. I usually use a tikka masala sauce, but this time we decided to try something different.

While we were up in Btown with my parents, we slipped out to the grocery store to pick up a few things. I happened to notice a premade sauce for Caribbean Jerk chicken and we decided to try it out.

Now then, let me be clear: this was not my first experience with Jerk chicken. When I worked at the awful store, I had a wonderful friend / coworker who often cooked for us. She lived in Guyana before moving here, so she always brought in these fabulous dishes, and one of them was Jerk chicken. I fell in love with it immediately–it was spicy, flavorful and magical. I always asked her to make it.

So, when I saw it in the store, naturally I was excited and bought it immediately.

We made it tonight.

I cooked the rice as I always do, and piled some on my plate with the chicken. I took a bite of the rice (that was near the chicken) and thought, “Gee, that rice has a kick to it tonight!”

Then I took a big bite of the chicken.

My mouth was on fire. It was so hot that it brought tears to my eyes and I had to spit it out. I’m pretty sure that there were actual flames on my tongue as is burned for roughly five minutes after I ate it.

I, being a loving and thoughtful wife,  warned my Hubster that the chicken was insanely spicy. He didn’t fully believe me at first, so he took a big bite.

That bite was followed by a yell: “HOLY, Shop girl! That chicken is HOT.” (hahahaha)

Sadly, I wasn’t brave enough to eat any more of the inferno chicken and filled up on rice. The Hubs was better–not wanting to waste the food, he ate everything on his plate.

I usually pack his lunch from the leftovers as I clean up the kitchen. He doesn’t normally hesitate to take what I’ve made… but after a small pause, he opted not to take the face-melting chicken to work. I suppose he didn’t want to breathe fire all over his co-workers.

I checked the label on the sauce to see if it mentioned anything about spiciness, but there was no warning about how hot it was. Had it read: “STUPIDLY HOT: Will cause face melting and fire breathing”, I would have at least known… though I probably would have bought it anyway. (I’m smrt like that.)

So, note to self: Jerk chicken is a little spicy.