Watch it, Jerk!

For last night's main course, we cooked Jamaican Jerk Pork with Tropical Mash. The jerk sauce/rub recipe was found here. We halved the recipe but only used one habanero pepper when it should have been two or three. Upon tasting the sauce, Jim was glad that he only put one in, but after Peta took the double thick boneless pork chops off the "barbie", we missed the heat. So be sure to add the right number of peppers if you are going to grill (and lose some of the sauce to the flames). Additionally, we wished that we had butterflied the pork and put in the sauce or just cut the chops in half because the surface area to volume ratio was too low to allow the jerk flavor to be the star. Jim wished that he had remembered to brine the chops as well. They were a bit dry for our liking. Bummer.

For the side, we made Alton Brown's Tropical Mash, which Jim got from Alton's "I'm Just Here For The Food" book, but that we also found here. It was really good as is and would have worked to cool down the jerk pork had we used the correct amount of habaneros. It's shown here on a bed of spinach.