The weather has been warming up, until the middle of this week, at least. When it’s warm, I want to grill things, and I decided, with my wife’s prompting, to do shish kabob one day. This is a great meal to grill as you can do everything on skewers, minimizing the need for dishes to be dirtied.
One thing I’ve found with shish kabob is that I don’t care to do everything on one skewer. The reason for this is that things get done at different rates, so you have to be very careful to size everything just right so it all gets done at the same time. Or you can do like I do and just do each item on its own skewer!
I used simple, easy to find ingredient: filet mignon, cubed at 2
different sizes (one to be rare, one to be medium), onions, button
mushrooms, Roma tomatoes and sweet peppers. I marinated the beef in
balsamic vinaigrette to just add a bit of flavor without overpowering
it with Italian dressing. I wasn’t necessarily going for authentic
Mideastern flavors. I also added some grey salt and pepper. I covered
the beef and put it in the fridge for a couple or house, turning every
20 minutes or so. I then quartered the onions and cut up the peppers.
The mushrooms were simple; I cleaned them and skewered them whole.
One thing to watch for when skewering anything, but especially
mushrooms, is not to stab yourself. I place the item to be skewered on
a cutting board, holding it on the sides, and put the skewer in at an
angle so that it will pierce the item but not my hand. Those skewers
can be really sharp!
Once everything is on skewers, the next thing to decide is which item
will take the longest to cook. If you’re having onions, that’s a good
bet. I have the grill set up with a 3 zone fire (check out my post on Get Your Grill On).
For veggies, I start them off over medium heat, watching to avoid
charring the veggies too much. Mushrooms seem to be particularly
susceptible to scorching if the fire is too hot. With the shish kabob
I made the other day, I started by putting the onions on, then added
the sweet peppers a few minutes later, over a medium fire also. The
mushrooms when on next, but more over the transition area between the
least hot and the medium zones. Tomatoes also went on the medium zone
of the grate. The meat when on last, and it started over the hottest
part of the fire. I turned it ever 45 seconds to sear all 4 sides.
When turning skewers on the grill, it often works best to use tongs and
move the skewers by whatever is skewered, not the ends of the skewers
themselves. Also, since shish kabobs have a lot of veggies to cook,
the medium section of a three zone fire should be the largest portion
of the grill.
Once everything was done, I removed it from the grill and took the food
off the skewers. Then I added a balsamic vinegar glaze to the meat…
Ok, I added it to everything, as it’s good stuff! It’s especially good
on beef, however. It’s quick and easy to fix, simple to serve, easy to
eat since it’s already all bite sized.
The last thing I did was to add halved and cored apples to the grill
while we ate the shish kabobs. By the time we were done, the apples
were nicely grilled, and the addition of a touch of caramel sauce added
great flavor without adding too many calories or too much fat!
