Pork Souvlaki – How To Cook Pork Souvlaki (Cypriot BBQ)

Pork Souvlaki – How To Cook Pork Souvlaki (Cypriot BBQ)

Pork souvlaki is one of my favourite meats to cook on the BBQ – I mean just watch my video on how to make pork souvlaki and tell me your mouth isn’t watering!

I’ll be blunt; when it comes to BBQ’s and cooking over charcoal the Greeks and Cypriots are experts. If you’ve ever been to a Greek friends house for a BBQ you’ll know what I’m talking about – perfectly cooked meat, uber tender and packed with summery flavours. But it’s also the salads and dips that create an amazing Greek BBQ.

This recipe is very much based around traditional Greek Cypriot flavour combinations of lemon, garlic oregano. If you want to go a little off-piste try my Chinese pork skewers; the method is the same but the flavour is very much from the Orient.

To make your own pork souvlaki it’s best to use a fatty cut of meat such as pork shoulder or pork belly; you need the fat in the meat to keep it moist.

Fat = your friend.

When I decided to write this recipe on how to cook pork souvlaki I felt I should have had some long-winded narrative about the trials and tribulations of cooking pork souvlaki but I really don’t.

Pork souvlaki is one of those recipes that’s classically simple yet perfect.

Check out lots more great BBQ recipes!

You don’t need anything else besides good quality meat, hot burning charcoal and a squeeze of lemon and sprinkling of salt. Sure you may want to wrap those little caramelised morsels of pork in a pita or a wrap (I prefer the latter) but either way they taste great.

Here’s my recipe for Pork Souvlaki.

I should mention that on most of my recipes I try to be quite specific on the amount of ingredients needed. Pork souvlaki is a bit different. You want a decent amount of meat, usually 250g per person but really it’s up to you and how hungry you are.

The same goes for the garnish; some like loads of onions others not so much. So make as much as you want. For me personally, I like just a little diced onion, lots of parsley, few chopped tomatoes and that’s about it! Equally you can throw in some dried oregano when cooking the meat.

It’s all Greek to me!

A quick note on cooking souvlaki – you’ve got to cook it over a really high heat! These are small pieces of meat, if you cook them slow or over a medium heat they’ll dry out and go chewy. They need to be over a searing heat. You’ve been warned!

(NOTE: you can also cook souvlaki on a griddle pan or under a really hot grill if you don’t fancy firing up the BBQ (but nothing beats the flavour of souvlaki cooked over real charcoal!)

Pork Souvlaki Recipe (serves 6)

Ingredients:

1.5 kg pork shoulder (skin removed)

Generous pinch Pepper

Good drizzle of olive oil

Zest 1/2 lemon

Generous pinch of salt (leave out if marinating overnight)

Garnish with:

1/2 red onion finely diced

30g chopped herbs (parsley or coriander go well)

1 large tomato diced

Some tzatziki or plain Greek yoghurt

1 lemon cut up to squeeze over the cooked meat

Pork Souvlaki Method:

  1. Dice the meat into 1-2 inch cubes and add the rest of the souvlaki ingredients and combine (you can leave this to marinate for an hour or overnight)
  2. Skewer the meat and place directly over the charcoal on the hottest area or straight onto a smoking hot griddle pan (make sure you turn on your extractor fan!)
  3. Turn the meat every few minutes to char on all sides (about 2-3 minutes on each side).
  4. Tip: drizzle lemon juice and sprinkle salt over the meat whilst cooking.
  5. Assemble the dish by laying a wrap or pita out, filling with the cooked meat and put over as much salad as you want

Check out my other barbecue recipes or watch some more video recipes!


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