Shish kebabs on a Friday night (or any night really) are hard to beat! There’s something so satisfying about well-seasoned, smoky chicken fresh off the grill. The mix of flavours and textures, especially with a good marinade and some fresh salad or pita, makes it an easy favourite in our house.

And let’s be real – eating food off a skewer is just fun!

Buttermilk Marinade

The milk and lemon juice together in the marinade essentially works like buttermilk. When you use buttermilk to marinate meat it tenderises the meat and helps to keep the meat moist during cooking, stoping it from drying out. That’s why the chicken shish in this recipe tastes so juicy and soft.

Ingredients

4 chicken breast, about 800g

Marinade

20ml extra virgin olive oil
60ml milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoon tomato puree
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon chilli flakes
½ teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt

Method

1. Cut chicken breasts into 1-inch cubes.
2. In a bowl, add chicken pieces and all the marinade ingredients. Mix well and then cover the bowl with cling film. Marinade for at least 15 minutes.
3. Heat up cast iron grill pan on medium-high heat.
4. Cook for 20 minutess, turning every 5 minutes. I flip the skewers as well when I turn them because the heat on my grill pan and hob is higher in the middle of the pan than the sides. Flipping them and moving them from the sides to the middle and from the middle to the sides will help make sure they all cook evenly.
5. Serve chicken shish with a salad, pita bread, tzatziki or a yogurt-based garlic sauce.

Did you try this recipe and how did it go? Share with me in the comments below!

Janice xx

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