Chicken Breasts and Vegetable Skewers

Chicken breasts can be grilled over direct heat, but cooking indirectly allows time for more flavours to develop. We’ll be basting these skinned and boned chicken breasts with a barbecue sauce to keep piling on the flavours.

Accompanying this recipe will be some baked potatoes and vegetable skewers, so the entire meal will be served straight from the barbecue. The potatoes were power boiled first so the barbecue will be mainly to allow a smokey finish.

Vegetable Preparation

Chop some onions into quarters, remove the stalks from mushrooms and wash, and chop up some large pieces of pepper. All these can be added to skewers and cooked at the edge of the heat. If you are using wooden skewers, remember to pre-soak for at least 30 minutes to avoid them burning up. Handle the skewers only with heat resistant gloves.

Wrap the power boiled potatoes in some foil. I was limited on space, so I placed them at the lower level next to the coals, which were arranged at one side of the kettle for indirect heat cooking.

Soak some wood chips in a liquid of your choice. I used hickory soaked in plain old water this time, but beer, wine and cider are also good choices.

Cooking

You can direct grill chicken breasts for to get some of that charred taste directly on the meat, but slow cooking a few breasts off the heat allows a deeper flavour to penetrate the meat. It also gives time to get some nice charring on the vegetable skewers.

Coat the chicken in some salt, crushed black pepper and garlic powder of about equal quantities and place on the opposite side from the coals. Place the lid on and start cooking.

I gave the breasts five minutes of indirect heat on both sides before basting with the sauce on the next turn. Continue turning and basting every five or so minutes until cooked – the chicken is cooked when opaque; white all the way through.

The vegetable skewers were cooked from about 20 minutes altogether but due to space issues were a lot closer to the heat. Turn these regularly remembering to be careful that the skewers will be hot – use heat resistant gloves!

Everything worked out well. It was difficult to photograph clearly as it was getting quite dark when I finished the cook. I can’t wait until the brighter evenings come back this spring.

The sauce worked really well on the chicken and poured onto the baked potato. I have enough left over for a dip or for adding to another dish.