New meal: Jerk Chicken with Rice and Peas

Nigella Lawson is considered by many to be the modern queen of roast chicken. Her initial claim to fame was the simple roast bird, cooked a la her mother used to make it, in her debut cookbook How to Eat. Since then, her subsequent cookbooks have always included new and interesting variations on that kitchen staple. Sometimes it's dressed up, sometimes it's dressed down; sometimes it's just plain nice, and other times it's, well, jerk.

That's meant to be a pun.

I actually saw Nigella making her homestyle jerk chicken on her most recent cooking show, Nigella Cooks, not too long ago. Several things sold me on trying the recipe for myself. For one, it's simple--just pop a bunch of spice-y, savoury ingredients in the food processor and voila! a marinade. It's also economical, since you can plan to use leftover chicken breasts in salads or other meals throughout the week. And I'd never really attempted a chicken recipe like this before, which I thought signified it was time to try one. Nigella makes an excellent tutor.

I made the chicken, which has a terrificly warm, earthy heat--no steam coming out of your ears, don't worry--with Nigella's recommended side dish: rice and peas. I'm rather a novice at cooking rice, but again, what better teacher than Ms. Lawson? I took mine off the heat perhaps just a minute or two too early, as it was still a bit sticky, but it was delicious all the same. I will definitely continue to use my pot with the see-through glass lid when I'm cooking rice. This particular recipe was a real winner.

All things considered, quite a tasty, comforting dinner for the evening of a much-warned-of ice storm.