Recipe: Korean spiced BBQ chicken
Hello Beasty — Korean spiced BBQ chicken
We serve these spicy chicken skewers at the restaurant. Cooked on the hibachi grill, they have a moreish fiery heat to them, with that distinctive gochujang flavour. They’re so good ! Paired with kimchi and some lightly pickled onion + veg, this is a super easy meal to make at home. While perfect for the BBQ, you can also cook these in a pan on the stovetop and finish them in the oven.
To watch how we made these, visit our instagram for videos and highlights:
You will need:
FOR THE MARINADE
150g Gochujang (available from Countdown, Tai Ping, Wang Mart in East Tamaki, any Korean food market).
100g Coarse Korean chilli flakes
80g Garlic — crushed
90g Mirin
90g Japanese Soy
70g Sugar
INGREDIENTS
800g free-range, boneless, skinless, chicken thighs. Clean and cut each thigh into 3 pieces (leave the fat on).
5-6 x spring onions — chopped into 3cm-long pieces (the firm white + pale green parts).
8 bamboo skewers, soaked in water.
Sesame oil — for cooking.
You could make this with a standard 400g pack of chicken thighs, just use half the amount of marinade and keep the rest in the fridge in an airtight container — it will last for up to 3 months.
Save the darker green stalks from the spring onions, they can be finely chopped and used to make spring onion flat-breads.
Method:
Combine all the marinade ingredients together in a bowl, mix well until it resembles a rough paste.
Add your raw chicken and spring onion pieces to the bowl and combine together (hands is best!), until everything is covered evenly.
Cover and refrigerate for 3-24 hours. Let those flavours really get going!
Once marinated, alternate threading chicken and spring onion pieces onto skewers. Each skewer can hold one thigh (3 pieces).
Remember to have soaked your skewers in water before you thread the chicken and onions on, so they don’t burn through on the BBQ — we used a fairly thick bamboo skewer available from Farro.
Refrigerate your prepped skewers until you’re ready to cook! Easy.
TO COOK:
Drizzle a little sesame oil over the skewers before putting them onto a hot BBQ grill or grill plate.
The marinade is sticky and the sugar content will want to burn. The meat will blacken (see our pics) so if you’re cooking over hot coals like we were, then try to keep the skewers away from the very hottest parts of the grill.
Cook for 5 minutes each side until done. Try to only turn them once during the cook.
If you’re worried about how charred they’re getting before the chicken is done, move them to a cooler part of the grill. If you have left over marinade, you can baste the skewers while they cook — this will help keep them moist.
Serve with wedges of lemon, your favourite kimchi or pickled vege and our spring onion flat-breads. Squeeze lemon over the skewers for a bit of zingy fresh acidity.
Woo hoo ! Enjoy Beasty!