Barbecue Green Chicken

Serves: 2
Total cost: 4 zl per person (80 pence UK, 4.43 Qatari Riyal, 1.22 USD)

Here's a robust South East Asian Green Chicken barbecue recipe with a touch of India. We'll be using chicken legs - thighs and drums - because they're juicy enough to withstand the intense roasting of the barbecue. Chicken breast doesn't barbecue very well at all since it suits a fast style of cooking like stir frying. The longer you cook a chicken breast, the tougher it gets. The legs, that's a different story: you can give them a real good roasting and those juices will keep flowing!

The green comes from the 4 main ingredients of the marinade: green chilli, coriander, chives and basil.

Here's a breakdown of what you'll need:

- 3 green chillies
- 1 handful of basil leaves
- 1 handful of coriander leaves
- 1 handful of chives
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 inch of ginger
- 1 tsp black pepper corns
- 1 tsp garam masala (see the recipe in a previous post)
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 2-3 tsp soy sauce
- juice of one lemon

Let's get to work!

1. Get the marinade ingredients ready

2. Start to grind the ingredients bit by bit in a coffee grinder (you could use a pestle and mortar if you prefer). Start with the dry spices - pepper corns, garam masala, salt and turmeric. Grind up.

3. Add the garlic, ginger and chillies. Grind up.

4. Add the green leaves bit by bit, grinding and pushing down into the mix and grinding again until it's all done. Squeeze in the lemon during this grinding process - this will provide the liquid required for a fine paste. Add the soy sauce at this stage too.

5. Skin and gash the chicken. This lets the flavour right down into the meat, which is exactly where you want it!

6. Rub the marinade over the chicken and leave overnight.

7. Fire up the barbie! Get the chicken on there pretty soon because it will take around 30 minutes to cook. Turn after 5-10 minutes and make sure the chicken is nicely done all the way through. After around 30 minutes, check the chicken by sticking a knife all the way through. If you see any red juices or blood, cook longer until there is no redness.

8. Magic! It's great combined with chicken done in other ways like rosemary/ garlic (as in the photo at the top) or tandoori (check out the recipe on its way soon!)

What this cost:

- 2 chicken legs: 2.80 zl
- other ingredients 5.20 zl

Total 8 zl
Serves: 2
Total cost per person: 4 zl