Updated: Jun 23, 2019
We're going to be bringing Hawaiian flavors into your kitchen with this recipe! (or to your camp stoves!)
My family has property out in eastern Washington that my grandfather has owned since before I was born. We try to make it a family tradition when we head out there every summer when we can. Its beautiful land, with a cliff, a creek and complete peace and tranquility all around you.
Unless your around the campfire with the family that is..... (at that point it gets a little louder).
What we do is we try and have everybody plan one meal that we can share with the group, so feel we all contributed to the weekly meals. For me, I am always excited about getting my gears a grinding about what kind of meal I want to plan for our family meals. I have really made it my goal to become very proficient with cooking around a campfire.
But guess what??
We were not allowed any fires during our stay because the area was struck with a particularly dry spell this summer! That is why you do not have those gorgeous campfire photos I was planning on sharing with you lovely people. But what Smokey the Bear says, goes. We went with the next best thing, which was our grill that we just happened to have. But hey, the chicken still achieved that beautiful black charred look and taste that I just love to have on my grilled chicken.
Hawaii has been on the mind lately because my family is trying to put together a family trip out to Maui again for next winter and that always gets me thinking about the Huli Huli Chicken, Kahlua Pig, Hawaiian Mac Salad and all those tropical goodies. For a little Hawaiian trivia, "Huli" actually means "turn". So Huli Huli actually means "keep that chicken turning!" (I might have expressed that in my own words a bit!)
I thought to myself, I'll put together some Huli Huli chiken marinade with all the right essential oils to make one fantastic sauce! Great thing about using essential oils in a meat marinade is that the oils work on the meat just like they work on our bodies. (No, don't go rubbing marinade on yourself.) When we apply essential oils onto our skin the oils absorb very quickly through into our bloodstream. Same works when you put essential oils into your marinade. The oils quickly permeate the meat with all the flavors and helps get that meat marinated all throughout. Yummy!
With this recipe I chose to use ginger, bergamot and lemongrass essential oils, mixed with fresh pineapple juice, garlic, and miso. And for a little redneck twist, we are in the woods after all......pineapple moonshine! My uncles likes to make moonshine so are always getting our fair share and we like to play around with adding flavors for drinks and recipes.
Now you can't have meat on the grill without a few sides! I put together some vegetable kabobs and some slices of pineapple and tossed them straight on the grill. Nothing like grilled pineapple!
As you can imagine the end result was delicious and I definitely recommend giving these chicken kabobs a whirl. I guarantee you won't be disappointed. (If you are you can send me an angry e-mail telling me all about it, but hopefully that is not the case.)
HULI HULI CHICKEN KABOBS
Makes about 5 servings
INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 pounds of wings
Huli Huli Sauce
Huli Huli Sauce:
1/2 cup pineapple moonshine
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons white miso paste
2 tsp ginger root, grated
2 tsp garlic powder (or 6 cloves minced garlic)
3 drops doTERRA ginger essential oil*
3 drops doTERRA bergamot essential oil*
3 drops doTERRA lemongrass essential oil*
1/4 cup water
For ease of mixing, I just tossed all the ingredients in a ziploc bag and shook it up to dissolve the sugar. Then I added the chicken in and let it sit in the cooler for a couple days. You really only need to marinate overnight, but this made it easier since we were going camping.
To cook the chicken, I preheated the grill to 350 degrees, put the chicken wing sections on skewers, and cooked until they had a nice grill char on each side. I reduced the remaining marinade down and basted the chicken with it each time I turned them over (huli huli remember). I flipped them about 10 times during the course of cooking them.
Pro Tips:
If you are using whole garlic and ginger you can just toss this mix in a high power blender and blend it up to make it smooth rather than chopping up the garlic and ginger.
Putting the ginger in the freezer makes it really easy to grate and use in a marinade because it breaks down some of the rigid cellular structure and allows it to release more flavor.
Happy grilling!
*You don't have to use doTERRA essential oils, but make sure whatever you use is rated for internal use and is food grade. Not all essential oils are created equal.
