Simkin: Kabobs an exercise in possibility

Colorful, fun and dangerous: If you didn’t think you could apply these adjectives to dinner,… Colorful, fun and dangerous: If you didn’t think you could apply these adjectives to dinner, you’ve obviously never had kabobs.

Add to them my two favorite qualities of any recipe — ease and deliciousness — and these barbecue staples acquire a more or less permanent position in my dinner repertoire.

The amount of ingredients necessary to make a kabob can be customized completely to how many servings you’d like to have in reserve. Invite a friend over or have some leftovers for lunch the next day — the choice is yours.

Even more delightful, the cooking process is blissfully simple: First, assemble your kabob components. I like to use onions, pineapple, bite-sized chunks of chicken breast and bell peppers. You can use a variety of colors for more aesthetic appeal, though personally, I only like the red peppers — they tend to be sweeter. Virtually anything you can skewer can be kabob-ed. Yes, that’s a verb.

Now comes the exciting part: stabbing things with sticks. Wooden or bamboo skewers are available inexpensively at most grocery stores and are conveniently disposable, but beware of splinters. Some brands may also advise that you soak them in water prior to use to prevent the skewers from catching on fire — which, needless to say, would be a dinner disaster. Metal skewers are an eco-friendly option with their reuse potential, but beware: They get hot when heated.

When spearing my ingredients, I try to go for a pattern or some semblance of logic, like putting the onions next to the chicken under the pretense that the flavor will cook in better that way. But it’s entirely up to you. Get creative, spell things out in Morse code, but try to avoid engaging unwilling passerby as participants in a skewer duel.

The kabobs could, at this juncture, proceed right to the cooking phase, but they’d be a tad bland. If you’ve got time, I’d recommend marinating them. If I’m using pineapple as a component, I like to use a teriyaki-pineapple sauce to enhance the flavor, but, once again, you can use just about anything. See how fun and interactive kabobs are?

Marinating times aren’t set in stone, but in general, a longer amount of time is better. On a college timeframe, if you’re able to assemble them before you leave for class in the morning, they’ll be perfect by dinnertime, but it’s all right if you’re only able to marinate them for an hour or two before cooking.. Or you could forego the marination completely and add a sauce of your choice for extra flavor.

I suppose if you’ve created an entirely vegetarian kabob, you could eat it raw if you so desired, but disregarding that possibility, you’re going to have to get the salmonella out of that chicken somehow.

If you’ve got a George Foreman Grill or some similar style apparatus, that’s ideal. A real barbecue or tailgate-style coals in a roasting pan will work too. I’d hazard a guess that a panini or quesadilla maker would work fine, but as I’ve never experimented with them, don’t hold me to it. If you try it and manage to burn your kitchen down, I will disavow all knowledge of this article, whether my name is on it or not. Oven baking or pan searing are other options you could investigate, but once again, I cannot attest to their viability.

Cooking methods aside, however, how will you know when they’re done?

In a staggering display of incompetence, I managed to forget to investigate the crucial cooking-time detail when I first attempted kabobs. My father, whom I consider my cooking guru when it comes to such things, did not pick up his cell phone, work phone or home line.

Telefact’s line was busy and the Internet in my apartment was down. There seemed to be no hope.

I settled by checking on my roasting concoctions every few minutes, cutting into the chicken to check if it was still pink. Hint: While doing this, avoid cutting so far into the chicken as to separate it from the kabob, because then you’ve got a sad stray chicken fragment on your hands and a bereft kabob skewer. Somewhere between 12 to 15 minutes later, I deemed them safe to eat.

Afterward, when I was finally able to contact my father, he confirmed that this touch-and-go strategy was what he used as well, giving me an overwhelming sense of vindication.

Enjoy your kabobs by themselves or over a bed of rice — and as always, feel free to mix and match.