Chili Chicken Skewers with Cilantro Pesto

This was a muy muy good recipe! The chicken skewers themselves were pretty good, but when eaten with the pesto and the sweet potatoes, it was out of this world!

I grilled the chicken on a cast iron griddle on our stove inside the house. Dh refuses to buy a gas grill. When we barbeque, its only in our authentic ceramic hibachi grill, and Sean is always in charge. Our cast iron griddle has a flat side for cooking things like pancakes, and the other side has ridges, like a grill. You place it over the burners to heat it. I used it to grill the chicken and it worked perfectly. I swear that it tasted like it was grilled over coals. My house got a little smokey and I had to do a little extra cleaning around the stove, and the griddle itself is quite hard to clean afterward, but its worth it!

I got this recipe from the Feb '06 edition of Cuisine at Home, but of course I made several adaptations.



Isn't the pesto beautiful!?



Chili Chicken Skewers with Cilantro Pesto

2 cups fresh cilantro leaves
1 cup fresh parsley leaves
1 deseeded, coarsly chopped anneheim chili
1/4 cup dry roasted peanuts
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup olive oil (I used 1/4 cup oil, 1/4 cup water)
Kosher salt to taste
1 1/4 lb. boneless, skinless chiken breast halves
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
2 tablespoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Process cilantro, parsley, anneheim chili, peanuts, lime juice and garlic in a food processor until minced. Add 1/2 cup oil (I used half oil, half water), blend until smooth, then season with salt.
Cut the chicken into twenty 1 1/2 to 2" chunks. Combine brown sugar and seasonings in a bowl, add chicken pieces, and toss to coat. Thread 5 pieces of chicken onto each of 4 skewers.
Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a grill pan thats been coated with nonstick spray over medium-high. Grill chicken untill browned well, about 5 minutes, turning occasionally. Thransfer pan to the oven and roast an addtional 5 minutes, or until chicken is cooded through (I didn't do this because I didn't read the directions thoroughly, I think it would have worked better if I had). Serve with sweet potatoes, and cilantro pesto for dipping.

Chunky Banana Sweet Potato Mash recipe accompanied this recipe, but I just made baked sweet potatoes instead. I knew that adding bananas to the sweet potatoes would be a major turn off for my family. The plain sweet potatoes were great with this recipe!

The cilantro pesto went perfectly with the next day's meal, also...