I grew up eating a version of this tasty delicacy. The one with scallops, those delicious pearls of the sea that are landed at one of America’s leading fishing ports: New Bedford, Massachusetts. A classic for cocktail parties, I was eager to volunteer to pass platters of these around for neighborhood parties. I attended a wedding as a teenager and ended up working the whole night for the caterer gratis (who ended up catering our wedding lunch many years later), just so I could have some of these as extra.
Fresh scallops are not available at this end of the Mediterranean and neither are frozen ones. So the next best choice is chicken. Usually baked or broiled, the chicken–like a scallop– can go from moist to dry very quickly. When it’s not done right, it tends to taste a bit flat. When prepared right, it’s perfect. Wood-grilling the cubes of chicken breast wrapped with bacon–like any of the recipes found in our grilling feature–imparts a smokiness to the chicken in a different way that the bacon can. The sweet spot here is that the rotating skewer sears the bacon evenly and, at a pre-programmed temperature, slowly renders the flavorful fat from the bacon, basting the chicken along the way. What you get are perfectly moist, succulent bits of chicken encased in salty, crispy bacon.
You just need to remember two words when preparing this recipe: make extra.

Skewered Chicken Wrapped in Bacon

Cut in small cubes (@2,5 cm/1 in):

• 3 large chicken breasts

Cut in half:

• 15 strips of thinly-sliced bacon

Assembly:
Line your work surface with a piece of parchment paper. Take a prepared cube and place it on the end of the prepared strip.

Roll up, placing the cut side down on the work surface. Repeat until all of the chicken is wrapped with bacon.

With the myGrill™ stainless steel skewers with cool touch handles, carefully thread each piece through the skewers, leaving the space of three fingers (@ 5 cm/2 in.) on either end. Make sure the meat is pushed close together. If bacon separates, be sure to tuck it in once the next piece is threaded through the skewer. It will cook perfectly in place.

 
Place on a hot grill and cook for exactly 25 minutes. Remove to a platter and serve with wooden cocktail skewers.

Tips for using the myGrill Chef SMART™ Grill:

Use the Automatic Mode and choose “Chicken”. Leave an empty position between the skewers so that they are not right next to one another. After 25 minutes, take off a skewer and sample a piece. If you think it needs a bit more time, it is done. Chicken looks limp when it is at its ideal cooking temperature. Allowing it to cook more will result in dry meat.