Chicken and Vegetable Skewers with Dipping Sauces

Ingredients

• 600g boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 3cm chunks
• 2 courgettes, cut into 2cm rounds
• 2 red peppers, deseeded and cut into 3cm pieces
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp garlic granules
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 150g Greek yoghurt
• 1 garlic clove, finely grated
• ½ lemon, juice only
• 10g fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
• 100ml tomato ketchup
• 100ml sweet chilli sauce
• 4 warm flatbreads, to serve
• 2 little gem lettuces, leaves separated, to serve
• 3 ripe tomatoes, sliced, to serve
• 15g fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly torn, to serve
• 1 lemon, cut into wedges, to serve
• flaky sea salt, to serve

Method

1. Soak 12 wooden skewers in cold water for at least 15 minutes — bone dry skewers scorch and snap under a hot grill.
2. In a large bowl, stir the olive oil with the smoked paprika, garlic granules and dried oregano, then warm the bowl briefly over the kettle steam or rest it somewhere warm for a minute — you want to bloom the spices in the oil until they smell fragrant and toasty rather than dusty. Raw paprika tastes flat; bloomed paprika tastes of itself.
3. Pat the chicken chunks dry with kitchen paper — water means steam, and steam means no char. Season the chicken generously with salt and pepper, then tip it into the spiced oil along with the courgette rounds and red pepper pieces. Toss until every piece is glossy and stained red with paprika.
4. Thread the chicken and vegetables alternately onto the soaked skewers, dividing equally between all 12. Don't pack them tight against each other — leave a hair of space between pieces so the heat can get in and char the edges rather than steam them.
5. Preheat your grill to high and line a baking tray with foil. Lay the skewers out in a single layer with room between them — crowd the tray and they'll sweat instead of char.
6. Grill for 18–22 minutes, turning halfway, until the chicken is deeply golden with blackened edges and the juices run clear when you pierce the thickest piece. The peppers should be blistered and the courgettes branded with grill marks.
7. While the skewers cook, make the minted yoghurt. Stir the grated garlic into the Greek yoghurt with the lemon juice and chopped mint — the raw garlic mellows in the acid while it sits, so do this first and let it rest. Taste and season; it should be sharp, herby, and properly salted.
8. Spoon the yoghurt into a small bowl, and pour the ketchup and sweet chilli sauce into two more. Taste the yoghurt one more time before it hits the table — adjust salt and lemon now, not at the table.
9. Slide the skewers onto a large board alongside the warm flatbreads, little gem leaves and sliced tomatoes. Scatter the torn parsley over the chicken, press a pinch of flaky sea salt onto the meat, and tuck the lemon wedges in beside the dips for everyone to squeeze over as they build their own.