Grilled Pepper Chicken Using Homemade Marinade

I overcame the temptation to use store bought marinade, instead made my own and grilled the chicken; it tasted fabulous…

I had a great weekend! It was so beautiful and sunny with clear skies. On Sunday, we bought a few packs of Chicken thigh-leg pieces. Grilling was the only mode of cooking I was interested in as I was way too lazy to make anything else. I was very close to pouring the store bought marinade over the chicken, but somehow managed to overcome it. I made my own easy marinade and gave the chicken a good massage with it.

I didn’t want to spend too much time making the marinade, hence I threw some ingredients into the blender and made a paste out of it. Spread it over the chicken and allowed it to rest for an hour. Placed it on the grill and grilled to perfection. This time, I made sure not to over cook the chicken. You know how it gets dry when you over cook it right? Not a good thing. And, my hubby likes it juicy and moist. This grilled chicken tasted fabulous. Because home-made marinade is fresh, it tastes a hundred times better than the store-bought ones. Try and read the ingredients in some of the store-bought marinades. If you can’t pronounce the ingredient it usually means it isn’t good for your body.

Here is my yet another favorite grilled cilantro chicken that I tried last month using homemade marinade.

Grilled Pepper Chicken:

Ingredients:

• Chicken thigh-leg pieces- 4 no’s or more

For making Marinade:

• Onion, chopped- 1/2 of an onion
• Ginger, chopped- 2 inch slice
• Garlic, chopped- 4 cloves
• Tomato, chopped- 1 small
• Whole pepper corns- 20 no’s
• Cumin seeds- 1 1/2 tsp
• Cilantro, chopped- 1 handful
• Mint leaves- 5 no’s
• Ground pepper- 1/2 tsp
• Salt- 1/2 tsp or according to your needs
• Lemon juice- 1 tbsp

Preparation:

• In a blender, throw all the ingredients for making the marinade.
• Grind it to a thick paste, use very little water while grinding.
• Spread the marinade over the chicken.
• Cover the chicken with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least an hour or marinate it overnight.
• Have the grill ready, spray nonstick cooking spray over the grill.
• Spray the oil to the chicken and place it over the grill at medium heat.
• Let it cook, flip it over and spray cooking spray on the other side too.
• Grill till both sides have turned golden brown.
• You could drizzle little lemon juice while the chicken is grilling.
• Don’t over grill it as it would turn dry.
• When the chicken has cooked well and turned golden brown in color, remove from the grill.
• Serve along with your favorite salad.
• I made a Lemony Salad: I used lettuce, cucumber and tomato, drizzled lemon juice, salt and ground pepper over the salad.