Mediterranean Grilled Chicken:


 

John Sp

TVWBB All-Star
This is a recipe I created to serve the Slidell High School Marching Tiger Band last year during their annual band trip. I have tweaked it a couple of times to yield the recipe found below. The kids seem to like it and have asked for it on several occasions. The recipe can be scaled up to accommodate any number of people. We had a band picnic today (after a long and successful competition season) and I couldn't make this fast enough. I had kids standing around the grill waiting for the next batch to come off all afternoon. You can scale this easily - I was cooking for around 100 today. I hope you enjoy it as much as they did!

Ingredients:
8 Chicken Breast Tenders
8 tbs Lemon Juice (fresh squeezed is best)
1 cup Olive Oil
1 tsp Dried Basil (1 tbs if you use fresh chopped basil)
1 tbs Lemon Pepper
2 Cloves Garlic, minced
Salt (to taste)
8 Thick Bamboo Skewers (soaked in water overnight)
Preparation:
Skewer each breast tender with a soaked bamboo skewer. Be sure to keep the skewer in the center of the meat so it is not exposed to the fire later. Sprinkle the skewered pieces with the lemon pepper on both sides cover and store in the fridge for several hours (overnight is fine). Combine the remaining ingredients in a bowl and whisk (or use a stick blender) to emulsify them. Cover the bowl and let it rest at room temperature for several hours to allow the flavors to mature (overnight is fine). About two hours before cooking, pour 2/3 of the marinade over the skewers and marinate them (in the fridge) until cook time. Reserve the remaining unused marinade for basting. NOTE: You may need to re-emulsify the marinade before using it for this step. Prepare a medium hot charcoal fire set up for indirect cooking (you gas grill jockeys are on your own here). Grill the skewers over the coals but ensure the exposed skewers are placed over the indirect side of the grill so they don’t catch fire. Turn after four or five minutes and baste with the reserved marinade (DO NOT use the marinade that the chicken sat in). Pull after another four or five minutes and serve. These can be pulled from the skewer and served on a plate but why bother? There is something primally satisfying about eating roasted meat from a stick…
Notes:
I have learned that you don’t want to marinate the meat for longer than a couple of hours. The lemon juice in this preparation will actually start to chemically ‘cook’ the meat.
 
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Hello John
Haven't bin on site for a while. Looking for new chicken recipe and this sound gooood. I am going to give it a shot and let you no how it went for me.
 
John, thanks for posting! I tried this last night and will definitely cook it again. I skipped the skewers and served the tenders with a greek salad, hummus, and pita bread. It was healthy, easy, added nice flavor to the tenders, and was a hit with the family.
 

 

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