Jerk Chicken Mango Kebabs

Kebabs are always fun to make on the grill and they generally impress your guests as well because you can incorporate different vegetables and fruits to make them nice and colorful. For maximum impressiveness, leave the kebabs skewered and serve, to make it easier on people, pull everything off the skewers and serve on a plate. This is what I do at home since the metal kebabs stay hot for a long time. They are also convenient because they cook very quickly because you cut the food into small chunks. In this case, I made jerk chicken and skewered it with mango chunks and red bell pepper pieces. The sweetness of the mango and peppers works great with the slightly sweet but spicy jerk chicken. The mangoes get soft and turn even sweeter when grilled to be completely delicious.

One thing to be aware of when making kebabs is that you want to load them up with foods that will cook at similar speeds. That way you don't have burned vegetables and undercooked poultry. If necessary you could also load up skewers with each type of food so they can be cooked at different times or over different parts of the grill.

You also want to make sure you soak wooden skewers if you are using them for at least 30 minutes before you put them on the grill so they don't catch on fire. You can also use metal skewers which I like because you don't have to mess with the soaking and they can be used over and over.

Jerk Chicken Mango Kebabs

Juice of 2 limes
1 T chili powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp chopped fresh thyme
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 T brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 mangoes
2 red bell peppers

Combine all ingredients through cinnamon in a large plastic Ziploc bag and mix well. Trim any fat off the chicken breasts and cut into approximately 1 1/2" chunks. Add chicken to the marinade and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Preheat the grill to medium heat.

Cut mangoes into large chunks. Mangoes have a large flat pit in the center. Cut each side off the mango, your knife will easily slice through the flesh of the fruit but not the pit so you'll know where to cut. Score each half into large chunks and fold the peel in to pop the pieces out. Slice off the chunks of mango to remove the peel.

Cut the bell peppers into large chunks and skewer alternating with the mangoes and chicken pieces. Grill about six minutes, rotate skewers, continue grilling about six more minutes until cooked through.