Grilled Green Chile Chicken Kabobs

This is a family recipe that I adapted a little in honor of the Hatch Chile festival at Central Market. My mom usually makes these with jalapenos so you could easily do that if you don't have Hatch chiles available. The marinade for the chicken is great for other preparations like chicken fajitas or grilled chicken for a salad or anything else so hang on to this one. I served these with Hatch chile cheese grits and grilled zucchini.

Time: 40 minutes, plus a few hours for marinating
Serves: 4 (the leftovers are great for quesadillas or burritos)

Ingredients

Marinade 

• 1/8 cup or 2 TBSP of soy sauce
• 1/8 cup or 2 TBSP of Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 a stick of butter
• juice of 1 lemon

Kabobs

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 8-9 roasted Hatch chiles or whole jalapenos from a can (you can find these on the Mexican aisle)
• 7-8 strips of bacon
• 1 large Texas sweet onion
• 7-8 wooden or metal skewers

Prep

1. Place your 1/2 stick of butter in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high in 30 second increments until the butter is melted.
2. To the butter, add your 2 TBSP soy sauce, 2 TBSP Worcestershire and squeeze in your lemon juice. Mix all together and set aside.
3. Trim the fat off your chicken breasts and cut into 1 1/2 inch chunks.

4. Add the chicken to your marinade and mix together. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour and up to overnight. As it chills, the butter will harden a bit. This is normal but if it grosses you out, you could try subbing olive oil for the butter.
5. If you're using wooden skewers, soak them in water while your chicken marinates. This keeps them from catching on fire on the grill.
6. Preheat your grill to high about 40 minutes before you're ready to eat. (our grill takes about 20 minutes to heat up so add time accordingly depending on your grill) I left one of our burners on low just so I'd have a cooler spot to work with as I cooked the skewers.
7. Peel your onion and chop into 1 inch chunks.
8. If you're using the roasted Hatch chiles, remove the outer skin, stems and seeds and cut into 2 inch pieces. If you're using jalapenos, remove the stems and seeds and cut into 2 inch pieces.

9. Cut your bacon slices into 1 1/2 inch pieces.

10. Assemble your kabobs. I wrapped each piece of chicken with a roasted Hatch chile, then a piece of bacon. A piece of the onion went on between each piece of chicken. There's really no science to this - you just want to get everything on the skewer so it won't fall off.

Cook

1. When your grill is nice and hot (mine was at 500°) carry your kabobs out and add them to the grill.
2. Cover the grill and cook them for 2-3 minutes. Then, use your tongs to flip them and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Repeat until all sides have nice grill marks and the bacon is crispy - it should take 10-15 minutes total. Some of mine cooked faster than others so I moved them to the cooler side of the grill as they cooked.
3. When they look close to finished, pull off one of the skewers and check and piece of chicken to make sure it's cooked through. Remove the skewers when all are cooked through and serve.