Oven Glazed Caribbean Chicken

I love rum (flavor). If I believed in re-incarnation, I probably would have been a pirate. Not the Black Beard, cut your heart out just a soon as look at you kind of pirate, but the Disney, Pirates of the Caribbean kind. Its a good thing I don't drink because with my personality I would end up on a beach in the tropics (or at a theme park) drinking rum and singing pirate ditties.

As a Mormon, we believe in abstaining from alcoholic beverages. I can honestly say that I have never been drunk (or even buzzed) and can't stand to drink the stuff. I have tasted many different alcohols, some in my teen years (thanks Scott), but mostly in culinary school. To me they all taste and smell like different varieties of cough syrup. But cooking with rum is different. Rum embodies the tastes, sounds and smells of an open ocean in the warm tropics of the Caribbean.

The nice thing about cooking with rum (or most alcohols for that matter) is that once the alcohol is cooked off you no longer have the cough syrup burn, or the brain matter killing, make your clothes fall off effects of the alcohol. Only the flavor is left. And it is the hint of that flavor that we pay tribute to with this International recipe for this weeks Tuesday theme.

Today's menu: Oven Glazed Caribbean Chicken served over Rice with uncut Green Beans. (Thanks to Mace for donating the rum (for flavoring)

Oven Glazed Caribbean Chicken

Prep time: 15 Minutes

Cook Time: 15 Minutes

Serves 8

1/3 cup raw sugar (like demetara or turbinado sugars, can substitute a brown sugar blend like Splenda)

1/4 cup ketchup

1/4 cup dark rum (or 2 Tbsp rum extract)

1/4 cup lime juice (or 1 fresh lime, squeezed, can add lime zest if desired)

2 Tbsp butter, melted

1 Tbsp finely chopped ginger

2 tsp unsweetened cocoa

1/4 tsp ground allspice

9 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

4 large cloves garlic, crushed

2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp Sea Salt

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Combine raw or sugar blend, ketchup, rum, lime juice, butter, ginger, cocoa and allspice in small sauce. Bring to a gentle boil; stir until cocoa and sugar are dissolved. Remove from heat and set aside.

Trim chicken of any visible fat. With sharp knife, make two diagonal slits about 1/2 inch deep on the top of each breast.

Combine garlic, oil, salt and pepper in small bowl. Rub mixture all over chicken. Arrange chicken slit side up on shallow baking pan. Brush with glaze, reserving remaining glaze. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat broiler.

Broil chicken on top shelf in oven for 5 minutes. Turn chicken over and brush with reserved glaze. Broil for an additional 5 minutes. Turn over once again, brush with glaze and broil for 2 minutes. Turn and glaze every 2 minutes until internal temperature is 170 degrees. (1 or 2 more turns).

Enjoy