Guava Kebab

 

Growing up, guava is the least favourite of all the fruits in our house. We all knew that it was good for health and all, but the seedy and hard texture of the fruit,and its near-neutral taste have been huge turn-offs forever. The only variety that was given any interest was the one with pink center, but that too was for the looks and never the taste. As I grew up, and read up on the nutrients in this fruit, I kept on thinking on how to include it in the diet atleast once in a week, and this dish came as a total pleasant-life-saver-surprise for that need.

The other day, I was lunching at the Great Indian Kebab Factory with my team. It was the lunch buffet, and that was when I tasted this dish. It was called fruit chat, and he served Pineapple and Guava grilled in some masala. It wasn’t the first time I was eating pineapple as a savoury (I’ve always loved the smoked pineapple panna at Sahib Sindh Sultan and the pineapple-vodka pizza in Little Italy) but eating a savoury version of guava was a total bumper. And my, did I love it. I asked for a second, third and a fourth helping of the guava pieces, and even licked my fingers as I finished it. I loved it so much that the taste stuck to my tongue, and my mind started wondering how exactly it was made.

This evening, fresh from my outing at the farmer’s market, I had a couple of good guavas at hand, and lots of time to try something new too. Giving some reins to the imagination, I quickly made a marinade of whatever nice and spicy was at hand, and cut the guava into pieces, and grilled it. The result was a lip-smacking kebab, which though didnt taste like the one I ate at the TGIKF, but was good to be served as a starter when friends come over.

Ingredients:

1 measure cumin powder
1 measure coriander powder
1/2 measure dry ginger powder
1/2 measure chilli powder
Sea salt – to taste
Orange juice – just enough to make a paste out of the above ingredients
1 guava – cut to 1 inch pieces

Method:
1. Pre-heat the over to 215C
2. Mix all the above ingredients except guava into a thick paste.
3. Put the guava pieces into the paste, and roll it, so that the paste coats the piece. You can also marinate the guava in the paste for 2-3 hrs.
4. In a baking tray , bake these pieces at 200C for 15 mins.
5. Let it cool for a minute or two, and dig in ! :)

Variations:
You can also add ginger-garlic paste, green-chilli-coriander paste also to the marinate , but in my opinion, the paste should be tangy in taste. Only then the chatpata-flavor of the kebab will burst in your mouth as you eat it.