If you can’t escape to the Caribbean this winter, then bring its spicy heat and tropical flavor to your kitchen. Jamaican jerk cuisine is a method of dry-rubbing or marinating meat in a jerk spice blend or paste packed with fresh chiles, herbs and spices. The marinade infuses flavor and tenderizes the meat, which is traditionally cooked on a grill.

Jerk seasoning is meant to be hot — very hot — which is typically achieved by adding Scotch bonnet or habanero peppers to the seasoning. If you are familiar with the Scoville scale (the measurement of the heat units of peppers), these peppers are at the top of the scale. This recipe tames the heat a bit by substituting jalapeno or serrano peppers so that you and your dinner companions won’t self-combust. Just remember to carefully seed any peppers that pack heat with gloved hands.

The list of spices and aromatics in this jerk paste is lengthy, but the method is simple. Gather the ingredients and add them all at once to a food processor. Blend to a paste while taking care not to inhale any peppery air that may waft up from the feed tube while processing. Then slather the paste all over the chicken and let it marinate, ideally overnight.

Jerk chicken is typically cooked on a grill (it’s from the Caribbean, after all). If grilling is not an option (for most of us, it’s not the Caribbean, after all), then this recipe provides an option to oven roast.

Lynda Balslev is a Marin cookbook author, food and travel writer and recipe developer. Learn more at TasteFoodBlog.com.