Kitchen Tip of the Week: Soak those Skewers

We've all been there: we happily skip outside to our smoking grill, with all the highest hopes a person can have of juicy meats and tastefully crisp veggies...

...only to have our wooden skewers char over, and eventually light on fire; leaving you with broken kabobs, and a vow to never try to grill the dang things ever again. And to top it off, the veggies and meat stick to the dang kabob, so their beautiful shape gets ruined when trying to slide them off the skewer! Makes me crazy! 

Is there a special way to prevent this? 

Yes, my friend. Yes. 

Which brings us to this week's kitchen tip:

Tip: Although it depends on the type of wood, soaking your kabob skewers for at least 15 minutes in water before loading on the veggies/meat will help them from sticking to the skewer during the grilling process. And most importantly, will prevent them from breaking/burning on the grill after the inevitable charring. 

I've tried it both ways many times. 

I've soaked 'em, not soaked 'em, soaked half of 'em, etc. 

The kabobs that I soaked came out much better, and didn't start on fire. Yes, they still got a little charred - they're wood skewers over an open flame for crying out loud, what did you expect? But the wood held together, and those savory veggies and moist meats easily slid off the skewers after grilling onto our needy and anxious plates.