Simple Chicken Kabob Recipes

You call it kebob, I call it kebab, let's eat the whole thing off. A chicken kebob recipe by any other name would taste as good. It depends on where you live and the language you speak as to how you pronounce the word. Which variation do you use, kabab, kabob, kibob, kebhav, kephav? All the basic chicken kebob recipes are the same and they refer to a variety of meat dishes from the Middle East, Mediterranean, African, Central and South Asian cuisines. It's all about grilled or broiled meats on a skewer or stick.

The American word kebob as in chicken kebob recipes has its' origin in shish kebab. Shish is the Turkish word for skewer. So the phrase is essentially Turkish in origin and Turkish tradition has it that this special cooking method came into wide use with medieval soldiers who used their swords to grill meat over open field fires. The dish, however, has been widely written about and presumably used in classic and ancient literature. Presumably the chicken kebob recipes of the ancient Greeks was at the really simple end of the spectrum. Since it takes a modern market economy and universal availability of herbs and spices to make a not so simple chicken kebob recipe.

Try this really simple one: Boneless chicken breasts, bacon and jalapenos either from a jar or fresh. Cut your chicken breast into strips about 2 inches wide and 3 to 4 inches long. Lay bacon flat on cutting board. Place chicken strip on top, put jalapeno in the middle, starting at the end nearest to you, roll them up and then stick them onto your sword or a skewer if you are off-duty. Not recommended for the faint hearted or digestively challenged.

Lets face it chicken is not the tastiest of meats. Perhaps it was in the Mediterranean in ancient times before we invented battery farming and happy birds would make for happy chicken kebob recipes. But nowadays, (history doesn't tell us when exactly the marinade became the next big thing in sword cuisine) marinade is the essential prerequisite to a lip-smacking kebob.

Try this simple chicken kebob recipe marinade. Mix the following ingredients in a blender until it is a well blended.

1 chopped onion, 1 cup honey, 1/2 cup teriyaki sauce, 2 tbsp chili powder, 1/3 cup Tabasco sauce, 1 tsp salt, 1 cup sugar, the juice from 1 lemon, 2 fresh peppers

Chop your meat into sword-size pieces and put them together with the marinade sauce in a zip-lock plastic bag and place them in the bottom of your refrigerator overnight or for at least six hours before cooking.

Marinating adds flavor and tenderness to your own chicken kebob recipe.