Souvlaki

Ingredients

• Pork shoulder — in 3 cm cubes800 g
• Olive oil80 ml
• Lemon — juice and zest1
• Dried oregano2 tsp
• Garlic3 clove
• Pita breads4
• Thick yoghurt200 g
• Cucumber — grated and squeezed½
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Mix the oil, lemon juice and zest, oregano, crushed garlic, salt and pepper. Coat the meat and leave it two hours, and no more than four.

   120 min

2. 2

   While it marinates, make the tzatziki: yoghurt with the squeezed cucumber, a clove of garlic, a spoon of oil and salt.

   10 min

3. 3

   Thread the meat onto skewers loosely — the heat has to get between the pieces. A tightly packed skewer stays raw in the middle.

   8 min

4. 4

   Cook on a hot grill or griddle, three minutes on each of the four sides. The meat should darken rather than pale.

   12 min

5. 5

   Rest the meat for five minutes, warm the pitas thirty seconds a side, and serve with the tzatziki and lemon.

   6 min

About the dish

The marinade should not stand longer than four hours. Lemon juice starts cooking the meat from the outside, and over-marinated pork goes dry and mealy before it ever meets the fire.

Cut the meat larger than seems right — three-centimetre cubes. Small pieces dry out faster than they brown.

The olive oil in the marinade is there for heat transfer rather than flavour: it spreads the heat across the surface and stops a crust forming too early.

Worth knowing

• — Soak wooden skewers for half an hour, or they burn before the meat is done.
• — Pork shoulder beats loin: the seams of fat keep it from drying out over a fierce heat.
• — The cucumber for tzatziki must be squeezed out. Otherwise the sauce turns to water within twenty minutes.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

660 kcal

Protein

46 g

Fat

38 g

Carbs

32 g

More from Greece

• Moussaka — Aubergine, a meat sauce with cinnamon and a thick layer of béchamel, baked until it sets firm enough to cut.
• Horiatiki salad — The village salad, with no leaves in it: tomato, cucumber, onion, olives and a whole slab of feta on top.