To tell the truth, I didn't really see this one coming. Kebabs have always been the lighter side of grilling. I never understood putting the vegetables on the same skewer as the meat, anyway. Since when does cubed lamb, chicken or sirloin, take the same amount of time as peppers and tomatoes? Meat gets cooked direct, veggies, indirect. And if you want to flavor it up, the sauce gets on everything, not just the meat.
Enough ranting. A fellow from Australia, by the name of Vic Cherikoff, does a lot of interesting things. He's into rare spices, weight loss, healthy living and all that stuff that doesn't usually go with barbecue. Healthy barbecue? Can't be done. Right? Wrong. Vic took the love of barbecue and figured out how to revolutionize it for the health conscious.
The problem with barbecue, for the health set, is all the sauces, salts, rubs and ingredients that get slathered on in the cooking process, to create that great bbq taste. Well, what if you could get the taste, without the sauce, marinade and spices? Can't be done. That's what I thought. Seems Vic thinks he came up with a process that infuses wooden skewers with flavor, that when put on the grill, releases into the meat. No salt, no sugar, no fat. Just flavor. Calls 'em Bar-B Skews. We'll see.
So, Vic sent me a complete set of his skewers, really nicely packaged, eight flavors in all, eight skewers to each resealable pack, shelf life of two years. So, I assembled my Sunday Night Taster Club and decided I would be somewhat healthy and cut up some boneless, mostly skinless chicken breasts and some sausage (c'mon, I'm not that good!), alternated them on the smooth, stout, skewers and did nothing but put them on the grill.
My thought was that the skewers needed to heat up like wood chips, enough to smoke the flavor into the meat, and that would mean you couldn't mix flavors. Then I thought again. That would be stupid. Vic wouldn't do that to me. So, I decided to use four different flavors, and went with Crushed Garlic, Australian Smoke, Wild Pepper and Spanish Rosemary.
Well, I grilled it, just like any other kebab, and after about half an hour of turning and checking and worrying that it wasn't going to be good and dinner was ruined, I set it on the table with our sweet potato fries and Greek salad, gave a shrug and told everyone to dig in. I'll be damned if it didn't turn my head when I bit into my tender chicken and tasted the mellow, familiar rosemary. Then the garlic, and pepper. The Australian Smoke had an allure that brought in the hints of all day smoking, but didn't overcome the meat. Chalk one up for Vic! These things are a unique, resounding success.
Says on the package, you can use them in whole birds, roasts, steaks, shrimp...if you can stick it, you can flavor it. Keep them more to the outside when doing a roast. Wet the blunt end if you're cooking over an open flame, use them in the oven, in a pan fryer, indoor grill, you name it. Can't for the life of me figure out why we don't have them here, but I might just try to change that!
Check out Vic's on-line store for yourself and pick up some Bar-B Skews. You won't be disappointed!
