Fire, Smoke and a Warm Flatbread

There is a little place on the road out of Sainte-Anne where I used to stop when I was young. We call them lolos back home, these small shacks by the beach with a grill out front and four plastic chairs. No menu. Whatever the man has, that is what you are eating.

He cooked brochettes. Chicken, cut small, sitting in lime and garlic since the morning, threaded onto sticks and put over the coals while you waited with your hands in your pockets. You could smell the thyme catching before you could see the grill. Somebody’s radio was going. The sea was right there.

That is the food I think about when the weather turns here in the UK and everybody drags the barbecue out of the shed. Because here is the funny thing. The word barbecue is a Caribbean word. It comes from barbacoa, which the Spanish took from the people of the islands, a wooden frame set over a fire. The word kebab travelled the other way, out of Persia and Turkey, and it means the meat on the stick. So when you stand in a garden in Birmingham on a bank holiday Monday cooking a Caribbean chicken kebab, you have got my island’s word for the fire and somebody else’s word for the food, and both of them are doing honest work.

I know most people in this country meet the kebab at eleven at night on the way home. I have nothing bad to say about that. But I want to show you the daytime version. The one with a proper marinade behind it, cooked over real heat, glazed at the last minute with my Flaming BBQ Sauce so it goes sticky and dark and just a bit dangerous, then folded into warm flatbread with something sharp and cold.

It takes fifteen minutes over the coals. The work is in the marinade, and the marinade takes ten.

Recipe at a glance

• Cuisine: French Caribbean (Guadeloupe)
• Prep: 20 minutes • Cook: 15 minutes • Total: 35 minutes (plus 2 to 4 hours marinating, which is hands-off)
• Serves: 4
• Featured sauce: Flaming BBQ Sauce
• Heat level: 8/10, smoky first, then it climbs
• Diet: Dairy free

What you’ll need

Buy thigh, not breast. I am going to say it once more so it lands: thigh, not breast. Breast on a barbecue is a gamble, because the outside blackens before the inside is safe and by the time it is safe it has gone dry and stringy. Thigh has more fat running through it and it forgives you. Forty seconds too long over the coals and it is still juicy. That is the whole reason the man at the lolo used thigh and never once considered anything else.

Cut the pieces to about 3cm. Bigger than that and the outside burns waiting for the middle. Smaller and they dry out.

For the chicken and its marinade

• 800g boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 3cm pieces
• 4 tbsp Flaming BBQ Sauce
• 4 tbsp rapeseed oil
• Juice of 2 limes (about 60ml), plus the zest of one
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 4 spring onions, finely sliced
• 4 sprigs of thyme, leaves stripped
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 1 tsp fine salt
• Half tsp black pepper

For the skewers

• 1 red pepper, cut into 3cm squares
• 1 yellow pepper, cut into 3cm squares
• 1 large red onion, cut into wedges and separated
• 8 wooden skewers, soaked in cold water for 30 minutes, or 8 metal ones

For the glaze

• 4 tbsp Flaming BBQ Sauce
• 1 tbsp dark brown sugar
• Juice of half a lime

To serve

• 4 large flatbreads
• A quarter of a white cabbage (about 200g), shredded very fine
• 1 carrot, coarsely grated
• A small bunch of coriander, roughly chopped
• Juice of 1 lime
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• Lime wedges

On the allspice: back home we use bois d’inde, the leaf from the West Indian bay tree, and my mother would crush two of them into her hand and throw them in. You will not find it easily here. Ground allspice from the supermarket does the job honestly and nobody at your table will know the difference.

How I make it

1. Soak your skewers. Wooden ones go in a tray of cold water for at least half an hour while you do everything else. Wet wood will not catch light on you. If you have metal skewers, skip this and be glad, but know they get very hot and you will want a cloth.

2. Cut the chicken. Trim off anything that looks like a hard lump of fat, leave the soft fat alone, and cut into 3cm pieces. Try to keep them roughly the same size. This is not fussiness, it is the difference between everything being ready at the same moment and half your skewer being raw.

3. Build the marinade. In a big bowl put the Flaming BBQ Sauce, the oil, the lime juice and zest, the garlic, the spring onions, the thyme leaves, the allspice, the salt and the pepper. Stir it properly. Taste it off a spoon. It should be sharp, warm and a little sweet all at once. If it tastes flat, it needs more lime.

4. Marinate. Chicken into the bowl, hands in, turn it over until every piece is coated. Cover it and put it on the bottom shelf of the fridge for 2 to 4 hours. Two is enough. Four is better. Do not leave it overnight, because there is a lot of lime in there and given long enough the acid starts to work on the surface of the meat and turns it chalky. This is one of the few places in cooking where more time makes it worse.

5. Make the slaw while you wait. Cabbage, carrot and coriander in a bowl. Lime juice, mayonnaise, a good pinch of salt. Mix it and leave it in the fridge. It will soften slightly and that is what you want.

6. Mix the glaze. Flaming BBQ Sauce, brown sugar, lime juice, stirred together in a small bowl. Keep it separate from everything else. Never take a brush out of the raw marinade and put it on cooked meat, that is a rule with no exceptions.

7. Thread the skewers. Chicken, pepper, chicken, onion, chicken, and on you go. Do not pack them tight. Leave a little daylight between the pieces so the heat can get around each one. Take the chicken out of the fridge twenty minutes before it goes on so it is not fridge cold in the middle.

8. Get your fire right. On charcoal, wait until the coals have gone grey and settled. If you can hold your hand a palm’s width above the grate for four or five seconds, that is your heat. Bank the coals to one side so you have a hot half and a cooler half. On a gas barbecue, medium. Indoors, use the grill on high with the shelf about 12cm from the element, and sit the skewers on a rack over a foil-lined tray.

9. Cook them. Skewers over the heat for 12 to 15 minutes, turning every 3 or 4 minutes so all four sides get colour. If the flames start licking up, move them to the cooler side and let them settle. You are looking for dark edges on the chicken and blistered, collapsing peppers.

10. Glaze at the end. Only in the last 5 minutes, and this matters. There is sugar in the glaze and sugar burns black and bitter long before chicken is cooked. Brush one side, give it a minute, turn, brush the other, give it another minute. Do that twice and you will have a lacquer on them.

11. Check it properly. Charred on the outside does not mean cooked on the inside, and chicken is never served pink. Take the fattest piece off, cut it in half and look: the juices should run clear and there should be no pink at all. If you have a probe, 75°C in the centre. Thigh will happily go to 78°C or 80°C and still be juicy, so there is no reason to cut it fine.

12. Rest, then build. Five minutes on a warm plate. Warm the flatbreads on the cooling edge of the barbecue for thirty seconds a side. Slide the chicken off the skewers, pile it into the bread with the cold slaw, spoon over whatever glaze is left in the bowl, squeeze a lime wedge over the top. Eat it standing up. That is how it is done.

The role of Flaming BBQ Sauce in this dish

This sauce does two separate jobs here and it is worth understanding both, because they are not the same job.

In the marinade it goes in early and it goes in deep. It is bringing smoke and chilli into the meat while the lime and salt are opening it up, so the heat is not sitting on the surface waiting to ambush you, it is built into the chicken from the inside. You taste it in the second bite as much as the first.

At the grill it becomes something else entirely. Brushed on hot in those last five minutes, the sugar in the sauce catches and tightens and turns to a dark, sticky skin over the chicken. That is the bit that sticks to your fingers. That is the bit people go quiet about.

I made this sauce for exactly this kind of cooking. It is smoky before it is fierce, which means it does not shout over the thyme and the lime and the char. Then it climbs. By the time you are halfway through the flatbread your lips are warm and you are reaching for the next one anyway. If you are feeding people who look nervous at the word flaming, my BBQ Sauce is the same smoke without the fire, and you can run the two sauces side by side on one grill and keep everybody happy. Both are vegan.

Tips from my kitchen

Two zones, always. A barbecue with one temperature is a barbecue that will burn something. Hot side to colour, cool side to finish. It costs you nothing to bank the coals over and it saves the dinner.

Onion wedges, not onion chunks. Cut the red onion through the root into wedges so each piece holds together. Chopped onion falls apart and drops through the grate, and you will spend the evening annoyed about it.

Do not crowd the skewer. I know it is tempting to load them up. Resist. Air moving between the pieces is what gives you edges, and the edges are the best part.

Save some marinade before the chicken goes in. Take out two spoons of it at step 3, before any raw meat touches the bowl, and keep it back. Warmed through in a small pan it makes a dressing for the slaw and ties the whole plate together.

Cook the night before if you are hosting. Marinate the chicken and thread the skewers in the morning, keep them covered in the fridge on a tray, and when people arrive all you are doing is standing at the grill with a drink in your hand. That is the point of a bank holiday.

What to serve it with

Rice and peas if you want the full plate, though I think this dish belongs in bread. Warm flatbreads, the lime slaw, and something to cut through: sliced tomato with red onion and a squeeze of lime, or a plate of grilled corn brushed with oil and salt while the coals are still going.

Fried plantain on the side is never wrong. Neither is a bowl of chips, if we are being honest about what a kebab is.

For the table, put out a jar of Fresh Herbal Sauce for anyone who wants green and cool rather than more heat, and keep the Caribbean Hot Sauce nearby for the one guest who always asks. If you are cooking for a crowd and you want to give people options, the Spicy Discovery Trio puts three sauces on the table in small jars and lets everybody find their own level.

FAQ

Can I make chicken kebabs in the oven instead of on a barbecue?

You can, and they are good. Oven at 200°C fan, skewers on a rack over a lined tray, 20 to 25 minutes, turning once halfway. Brush the glaze on for the final 5 minutes as usual. You will not get the smoke, so I would put the grill on high for the last 3 minutes to catch some colour on top. Same check applies: no pink, juices clear, 75°C in the middle.

How long should I marinate chicken for kebabs?

Two to four hours is the sweet spot with this marinade. Thirty minutes will give you flavour on the outside if you are in a rush. Beyond about six hours the lime starts working against you, softening the surface of the meat until it goes pale and chalky. Marinade only travels a few millimetres into meat anyway, so the extra hours are not buying you what you think they are.

Can I use chicken breast?

You can, but cut the pieces slightly bigger, about 4cm, take a couple of minutes off the cook time and watch them like a hawk. Breast has almost no fat in it, so the window between cooked and ruined is narrow. If you have a choice at the counter, take the thigh. It is cheaper too.

How spicy is this really?

The Flaming BBQ Sauce is 8 out of 10 on my scale, and there is a lot of it in this recipe, so the finished kebab lands around a 7. It builds rather than hits. If you are cooking for children or for people who are not used to chilli, use my BBQ Sauce in the marinade and keep the Flaming one for the glaze on half the skewers only. Then everybody eats the same dinner.

Can I prepare these in advance for a party?

Yes, and I would. Marinate and thread the skewers up to a day ahead, lay them on a tray, cover, keep them in the fridge. Make the slaw the same morning. Mix the glaze and leave it in its bowl with the brush. When the coals are ready you are fifteen minutes from feeding people.

Final word from me

I did not grow up calling these kebabs. We called them brochettes, and they came off a grill by the sea with sand on the floor and nobody in a hurry. But it is the same idea in every country that ever put meat over fire: cut it small, treat it well, cook it hot, eat it with your hands.

Get the marinade right, keep the glaze for the end, and do not walk away from the grill. Everything else looks after itself.

Cook it for people you like, and cook plenty. Nobody has ever eaten one.

JP