Topic: Axe's Chicken Shish - Kebab Shop

[Malc.]

I've been playing around trying to create a recipe for the Kebab Shop Chicken Shish. It's taken many forms over the years (my recipe that is) but I have finally come to rest on one that really works very well indeed. Its been tested on friends and family who enjoy it and we have this now on a regular basis.

As always, please feel free to comment on the recipe. I really hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Axe's Chicken Shish
For 2 persons

2 Chicken Breasts
2 Pitta Breads
1 Med Onion
1 Pepper (colour of choice)
2 tbls Lemon Juice
1 tbls Yoghurt
1 tsp IG Mix Powder http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=4442.0
1 tsp Mild Curry Powder
1 tsp Garlic & Ginger Paste
1/2 tsp Fenugreek Powder

Salad to serve.


Method
Add to a bowl the Lemon Juice, Yoghurt, garlic & ginger, IG Mix Powder, Curry Powder and fenugreek, mix thoroughly. Cut each chicken breast into 6 even sized pieces and add to the bowl and mix through. This needs to marinade for as long as your prepared to wait but great results can be achieved after just an hour.

In the meantime, cut the onion into wedges and separate the layers to leaving 2 or 3 together. The centre parts I usually chop and add to the salad. Cut the pepper into similar sized pieces.

Preheat the oven to 250c. Build the kebab placing onion, pepper and chicken onto skewers. I place these onto a shallow roasting pan and then place in the oven for 15 minutes. 3 mins to the end of cooking, put Pitta Bread in the oven, I usually go straight on the shelf bars.

Serve with salad and choice of sauce. Works really with with plain lemon juice, but I also like yoghurt and Mayonnaise mixed in equal quantities.


Chicken in marinade:



Kebabs ready for oven:



The finished dish:

[Secret Santa]

Well it certainly looks the part axe. I'm just wondering what the fenugreek powder, which I assume is ground seeds, does?

I know that its use in curries baffles me, it does nothing for me. Perhaps I'm missing the fenugreek taste bud? 

[Malc.]

Its a valid question and the real answer is that whilst I was playing about I added it in and I remember the recipe that night being pretty good. To be totally honest, I have not really stuck to a specific recipe until now. They have always been put together using rough amounts. I did the Fenugreek variation a couple of weeks back and it was very good. Now I have standard spice mix, I simply use that in place of all the other spices I used to add but always add the Fenugreek. In all honesty, you'd probably get away without. But it does have that almost underlying curry aroma.

[Malc.]

I'd love to get some feed back on this recipe from members, we did this again tonight and loved it.

Normally we add the usual lettuce and onion with a dollop of mayo or a squirt of lemon juice. But tonight I decided to use some left over mint sauce I had with bhaji's last night. I simply poured it over the lettuce and onion salad and tossed to coat. It ended up like a lean coleslaw and was simply perfect. Not traditional I know but damn tasty.

[solarsplace]

Hi Axe

Thank you for posting this recipe. I made it over the week end and thought I would feed back positive results

The only observation I would make is that the marinade seems to be quite thin and does not seem to help the chicken to retain its juices and moisture as easily as a tikka type of marinade when cooking on the BBQ.

This is probably more noticable as I used frozen Iceland chicken breast fillets (trying to save money in these hard times). When I make this again I will use some better quality (hopefully non water injected) fresh chicken.

Top pic: Kebabs on the BBQ.
Bottom pic: Kebabs on the plate with Axe's Saag Aloo & Curry Crunch book pilau rice. Plus token salad bits.

[Malc.]

This is the wrong time of day to be viewing this, especially when I haven't stopped for lunch yet! That looks very good indeed!

Thanks for the feedback, i'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm not sure why they were dry, though one thing I have noticed that may help is that if you bunch the chicken, peppers, onion etc. closely together on the skewer, it retains alot more moisture.

I do have an alternative recipe that I use when i'm in a hurry and don't want to marinade for a length of time. It might be more suited to the frozen fillets as it contains oil. Funnily enough, I made it again this weekend too, when we had last minutes guests turn up for dinner. I don't have any measurements for this but it's fairly similar.

Cut chicken and place in bowl evenly sprinkle with mix powder, fenugreek and a little chilli powder. Add lemon juice and a similar amount of mustard oil and just a small drop of yoghurt. Mix well. If you get the ratio of powdered ingredients against the wet ingredients right, you should end up with a fairly sticky marinade that is coating the chicken.

Next time I do this I will takes some notes and pic's and update the topic.