Chicken Skewers on Watermelon & Feta Salad
Introduction
Serves: 6 – makes about 24 skewers
Ingredients
2 yellow peppers (bell peppers/capsicums)
480g jar (about 2 cups) pimiento-stuffed green olives (if you can find Queen olives, even the better) drained
4 Tbsp olive oil
1 thin-skinned lemon
1 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp finely chopped mint, plus extra sprigs for garnishing
Flaky salt and freshly ground black pepper
750g (1 pound 6 ounces) skinned and boned chicken breasts, cut into small pieces
Salad
¼ cup pumpkin seeds
Flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cos (romaine) lettuces, trimmed, broken into leaves, washed and dried
Half a small watermelon, rind removed and cut into small chunks
250g (about 8 ounces) firmish feta, patted dry and crumbled into chunks
3 Tbsp lemon-infused extra virgin olive oil (or use extra virgin olive oil with the zest of 1 lemon)
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
Short bamboo skewers, soaked in cold water for 30 minutes
Method
1 Core and deseed peppers and cut them into smallish chunks. Put in a bowl and mix in one tablespoon of olive oil. Set aside for 15 minutes.
2 Peel off lemon in long thin strips and juice the lemon. Put rind in a bowl with strained lemon juice and honey (if the honey is stiff put it in a ramekin set in a bowl of hot water until melted), the rest of the oil, mint, ½ teaspoon of salt and pepper to taste. Mix well, then add chicken pieces, stirring well to coat. Thread chicken onto bamboo skewers alternating with chunks of yellow pepper and olives (be a bit random, some with one olive, some with two …).
3 Cook chicken skewers over a medium heat on a preheated and lightly oiled barbecue hot plate (griddle) until chicken is lightly browned and cooked through; do not have the heat too high or the outside of the chicken will darken before the inside cooks properly. Drizzle with marinade during cooking, but take care the pieces of lemon rind do not burn. Scrape them onto the hot plate and cook them separately until golden, then put them on top of the skewers once they are cooked (they have a delicious intense lemony flavour). Alternatively, cook chicken skewers in batches in a preheated lightly oiled ridged grill pan.
4 Have ready a salad made with remaining ingredients. Cook the pumpkin seeds first in a lightly oiled pan over a medium heat until they cease popping, shaking pan occasionally (the pan must be covered either with a splatter screen or a lid, because seeds pop everywhere and they’re hot!). Tip seeds onto a plate and sprinkle generously with sea salt.
5 Arrange cos leaves on a large platter. Lay watermelon slices on leaves, crumble feta over, then scatter over pumpkin seeds. Mix lemon-infused olive oil and white wine vinegar with a ½ teaspoon of sea salt and some black pepper. Pour this over the salad. Put the hot chicken kebabs on top and garnish with mint. Serve immediately.
