Asian chicken skewers

I love cooking because it’s such a great creative outlet. You need to take time over each stage, deciding what to cook, choosing the right ingredients, preparing everything, cooking it perfectly and making sure it looks tasty when you serve it up. To me none of this stressful, I love poring over recipe books, surfing the net for inspiration and coming up with a new recipe to try. I even love shopping in supermarkets!

So when Sainsbury’s launched their new Speciality Ingredients Range of more than 30 products from Japan, the Middle East, pan-Asia and the Mediterranean and sent me some to experiment with, I was delighted. These ingredients make it quicker and easier to cook from scratch, so that’s got to be good.

Time for some creative thinking. Here’s the first of three recipes I’ve come up with using some of the ingredients I was sent.

Serves 2

2 chicken breasts

1 onion

Half a red pepper

Half a green pepper

For the marinade

4tbsp Sainsbury’s mirin

4tbsp soy sauce

1tsp sesame oil

Juice of 1 lime

2tsp Sainsbury’s ginger

1tsp sugar

Slice the chicken up into bite-size chunks.

Mix together all the ingredients for the marinade and place the chicken in it. Cover and leave for at least half an hour, up to 4 hours.

Take 2 wooden skewers and soak them in cold water in the sink for at least 3o minutes. This prevents them from burning under the grill.

Slice the onion and peppers into chunks the same size as the chicken. Thread onto skewers, alternating chicken, red and green peppers and onion.

Empty the marinade into a pan and boil on a medium head until the liquid reduces and becomes sticky like a glaze. Baste the skewers with the glaze and cook under a low grill for 10 minutes. Then turn over and baste the other side with the glaze. Cook for another 10 minutes.

Finish off with another brush of the glaze before serving. Serve with rice.