Persian Chicken Kebabs

Years ago when I was still living in Phoenix, I had a colleague at work that was from Iran. Saeid introduced me to a lot of things that were unfamiliar to me at the time, including Persian cuisine. My first experience with Persian cuisine was at the Persian Room in Scottsdale Arizona....and from there I was hooked!

Saeid was quite the amateur chef himself, and he taught me how to make real Persian style chicken kebabs. It turned out to be much easier than I had imagined. The secret is all in the marinade, both the preparation of it and also how long you keep the chicken in the juice.

The marinade is made by cutting up a whole onion, putting in a blender...then adding a few other ingredients: fresh lemon juice (don't use lemon juice from a bottle, it won't come out the same), olive oil, salt, pepper and saffron. That's it! It's critical that you grind up the saffron in a mortar and pestle first....don't just throw the threads in the blender. Sorry....I don't have measurements or proportions....I do everything by sight and taste when cooking....I rarely measure out anything...that's just how I roll in the kitchen. I don't really bake, so this usually works out 😛

Anyway.....blend all those ingredients in the blender until it is a smooth purée. Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces, then place them in a gallon sized ziploc freezer bag. Pour the marinade over it all, then seal and shake it all up really well.

Place the bag in the fridge for 24 hours.

To assemble the skewers, I take the bag out of the fridge a couple of hours before I am to grill them for two reasons: 1. Your hand gets very very cold while dipping for chicken pieces when placing them on the skewers. 2. I'm a firm believer in not grilling cold meat....I like to let it come up to slightly cooler than room temp before grilling any meat.

After that I just throw them on the grill....around 400 or so and cook them until I've sampled a few pieces with a meat thermometer and they are 165 degrees F.

I like to serve these with Latin style rice (A post for another day), Lebanese green beans (Ady of Ady's Pita....a food truck based here in Mooresville taught me how to make these....I'll do another post sometime about how to make them as well), and tzatziki. I usually throw a couple of Roma tomatoes on the grill as well while the Kebabs are cooking just as a fun garnish.

Bon Appetit!