Recipes / Chicken
Chicken espetada with garlic and bay leaves
Big chunks of chicken salted with garlic overnight, threaded with bay leaves on long skewers and cooked fast over hot coals, Madeira style.
- Prep
- 25 min
- On the fire
- 15 min
- Plan ahead
- 8 hours or overnight salting
- Serves
- 4
- Done at
- 165°F (74°C)
Ingredients
To serve
Method
Cooking on gas?
- Preheat with all burners on high and the lid closed for 10 to 15 minutes, until the lid thermometer reads 260°C (500°F) or more. Brush the grates clean and oil them.
- Cook with the lid open and use the recipe times as a guide, checking with a thermometer.
- Keep one burner off or on low as a cooler zone. If fat flares up, move the food there. Never use water on a gas grill flare-up.
- For a smoky taste, put a handful of wood chips in a smoker box, or a foil parcel pierced with a few holes, over a lit burner while the grill preheats.
- Cut each breast into 4 or 5 thick chunks of about 5 cm (2 inches). Keep them large so they stay juicy on hot coals.
- Mix the chicken with the chopped garlic, salt and pepper in a glass dish. Cover and keep in the fridge overnight, or for at least 8 hours.
- Take the chicken out of the fridge 45 minutes before you braai. If you are using rosemary, strip the needles off the bottom two thirds of each branch and sharpen the thick end.
- Thread the chunks onto the skewers with a bay leaf between each piece. Push the pieces close together so the leaves stay in place.
- Brush the skewers all over with the olive oil.
- Cook over hot coals for 12 to 15 minutes, turning a quarter turn every 3 minutes so each side browns. Move them to the edge of the fire if the garlic starts to burn.
- Lift the skewers onto a board, brush with the garlic butter and squeeze over some lemon. Rest for 3 minutes before you slide the chicken off.
Done when: the outside is browned with charred edges, the juices run clear, and a thermometer in the centre of the thickest chunk reads 74°C (165°F).
Tips
- Thigh meat is more forgiving than breast. Start checking breast chunks after 10 minutes, as they dry out quickly once past 74°C (165°F).
- In a restaurant espetada hangs from a stand over the table. At home, rest the long skewers across two bricks at the edge of the fire to keep them off the grid.
- Dried bay leaves work, but soak them in water for 10 minutes first so they do not burn and fall off.
Espetada comes from the island of Madeira, where beef is salted, rubbed with garlic and grilled on bay-wood skewers. Madeiran and Portuguese families brought it to South Africa, and today most Portuguese restaurants here serve it hanging from a stand with garlic butter running down. Chicken is a lighter version that cooks faster. For skewers with a Cape curry flavour, try the chicken sosaties.
Source
Adapted from Braai Week: Rosemary and garlic chicken espetada at Daily Maverick and Peri-peri chicken breast kebabs at Paarman Foods.