Souvlaki: cooking recipes. Small skewers cooked on wooden skewers and wrapped in pita

Souvlaki, like many other recipes of Greek cuisine, has acquired many variations, so you can’t even tell where the real souvlaki is, and where the fantasies of Russian housewives on the topic of souvlaki are. So if you really take the recipe, then "first hand". Irina Fedotova tells how to cook souvlaki correctly. She has been living in Athens for 10 years and works in the national Greek tavern.

Souvlaki is one of the traditional Greek dishes. These are small skewers on wooden skewers. Sold in almost all restaurants and eateries. Walking along the streets in the center of Athens, you can see small shops at every step, where you will be offered a wide selection of kebabs. Chicken or pork, on wooden skewers or wrapped in a flatbread with fresh vegetables and tzatziki sauce. But let's go in order. Classic souvlaki (the Greeks call them “kalamaki”, which means straws) are small pieces of meat strung on sticks and baked on charcoal. You can eat them on the go, pulling off piece by piece from a stick, or have a bite right there, sitting at a table and ordering more french fries and tzatziki sauce. As a rule, you will also be served slices of white bread toasted on a wire rack. All together - just a meal.

Another type of souvlak is pieces of meat (pork, lamb, chicken) wrapped in a fried flatbread with sliced ​​\u200b\u200btomato, onion and tzatziki sauce. If you didn’t have to visit Greece and try souvlaki, don’t be discouraged – we can cook them at home too. Well, let's start.

Ingredients:

• meat (pork ham, loin, pork neck) - 600-800 grams,
• olive oil - 100 grams,
• juice of ½ lemon;
• spicy mustard - 2 tbsp. spoons,
• oregano seasoning - ½ tsp
• salt, pepper - to taste,
• ready-made cakes - 3-4 pcs. or slices of white bread,
• wooden skewer sticks - 6 pieces.

How to make souvlaki

Meat for souvlaki mode into small identical pieces.

In a deep bowl, mix oregano, lemon juice, olive oil and mustard. Add the meat, cover with cling film and leave to marinate in the refrigerator for 30 minutes (you can also for the evening). Mustard makes the meat very tender, but if you don't like it, omit it from the recipe.

Dip wooden skewers in water for 10 minutes. We do this so that they absorb water and meat does not stick to them, and also so that the sticks do not burn during frying.

We string pieces of meat on skewers.

Grill the skewers for 4-5 minutes on each side, for a total of 20 minutes. You can use a grill in the oven, you can use a barbecue, or you can use a regular Teflon pan.

Souvlaki turned out so delicious.

Lightly brush the tortillas or slices of bread with olive oil and bake them until golden brown for a couple of minutes. We put it on our plate. Put the skewers on top of the cakes. You can garnish with a couple of tomato slices and french fries. Tzatziki sauce goes well with this dish.

Enjoy your meal!

For me, souvlaki, for all its simplicity, is one of the few dishes that I really liked in Greece. I have written more than once about the quality of Greek dishes in Greece itself. But I have never come across tasteless souvlaki, felts from pork, or chicken or lamb. I have never tried beef and fish souvlaki in Greece, but I know for sure that they also exist.

The marinade in all souvlaki is as simple as possible. Almost the same as in the recipe, inspired by souvlaki. In some souvlaki recipes, pickling time is indicated even 8-10 hours, and sometimes even longer. I do not recommend! Since the marinade has lemon juice as one of the key elements, marinating small pieces of meat for a long time will simply "correct" it. I think 2 hours is enough. Souvlaki are very tender and juicy.

A characteristic feature of souvlaki is their small size and the fact that they are almost always baked on wooden skewers. Also, dried oregano is used for the marinade, which has a specific aroma. Fresh is better not to replace, the aroma will be sharp.

If you need more souvlaki, increase the amount of marinade in proportion to the amount of meat.

4 servings:

For the souvlaki:

• 800 grams pork (preferably neck), cut into small portions
• 50 ml olive oil
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 2 teeth garlic, squeeze
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• pinch of sugar
• Salt to taste

Besides:

• 1/2 lemon, cut into 4 segments

1) Place all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Leave to marinate for 2 hours. Put the bowl with the meat, covered with a lid, in the refrigerator and remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking.

2) If baking on wooden skewers, soak them for 1-2 hours in cold water.

3) Put the marinated meat on the soaked skewers. Dry the souvlaki on all sides with a paper towel so that the meat blushes better and the smoke settles on the surface better.

As has been noted more than once, a trip to Greece is not only the sea, the sun and the beach, but also delicious food. Therefore, today we continue our acquaintance with the culinary traditions of the Mediterranean, and next in line is the most popular dish of Greek cuisine - Souvlaki. And if Greek salad and Moussaka are predominantly restaurant dishes, then finely chopped Greek shish kebab is sold at any street vendor and is considered a national fast food. It is noteworthy that the products of such giants of the food industry as McDonald's, KFC and Burgerking lost the competition to Souvlaki in Greece. So what is this deliciousness? Let's find out right now!

So, the Greek dish called Souvlaki is a shish kebab very finely chopped and strung on wooden skewers. Souvlaki is traditionally made from pork, but sometimes cooks use other meat products for cooking. Therefore, there are souvlaki made from chicken, turkey, lamb or beef. Before sending the dish to the fire, it is kept in a special marinade made from olive oil, lemon juice and spices. Then the "infused" meat is strung on skewers and cooked on the coals of the grill, or spread on a frying pan / baking sheet and fried.

Story

Where and when Souvlaki appeared in Greece, Greek cuisine will not remember exactly. And even for many years there was a culinary dispute between Turkey and Greece for the right to be called the birthplace of barbecue on skewers. But in 2011, an unexpected discovery put an end to this competition. During excavations in the city of Fira ( O. Santorini, Greece) a stone brazier was found with stands for skewers and special slots for air. Thus, as early as 1500 B.C. the Greeks ate Souvlaki cooked on coals!

A little about the title

If we talk about why the Greek kebab is called Souvlaki, then you should pay attention to the "core" of the dish. Greek-style meat is cooked not on long steel skewers, but on small wooden sticks called "Σούβλα" (Suvla). From these skewers, the name of the dish itself first came, and then the designation of street cafes. Today, a diner with a sign Σουβλατζίδικо (Suvladzidiko) can be found literally on every corner. By the way, if you remake it in the Russian manner, the expression will be something like this - “Suvlachnaya”.

By the way, kebabs in Greek were cooked on special cane sticks, which were called Καλαμι (Kalami). Since then, this dish has also retained a second name - Kalamaki. However, in modern Greece the term Souvlaki is used much more frequently.

Serving methods

Greek kebab is served in two ways. The classic version: skewers with meat are laid out on a plate, and garnished with french fries, sauces or vegetable salads. So you will be served Souvlaki in a restaurant or a large cafe.

The street serving option is as follows: meat with the addition of various sauces and vegetables is served wrapped in Greek pita bread. The exact composition of the ingredients is not constant, because. formed to the taste of the client. Souvlaki is most often ordered with Tzadiki sauce, ketchup, sweet onion and tomato slices, and a small portion of french fries. All this is wrapped in Pita (like in pita bread) and a delicious roll is obtained, reminiscent of shawarma.

By the way, because of this similarity, Souvlaki is sometimes confused with the Greek dish Gyros, which is considered a direct analogue of shawarma. However, the composition of the products and the technology of preparing Gyros differ from Souvlaki, and accordingly the taste of the dish is completely different.

How to cook Greek Souvlaki

A hearty and tasty Greek-style barbecue is not difficult to cook outside of sunny Greece. At the same time, you can add spices to your taste in the recipe or reduce the calorie content of the dish by getting rid of the tortillas and sauces, and instead of pork, for example, cook Souvlaki with chicken or turkey.

And we will definitely tell you about the secrets of cooking Souvlaki at home according to different recipes, but a little later. Now let's dwell on the traditional way of cooking this dish, which has come down to us since ancient Greece.

Ingredients

To begin with, we note that since Since we cook Souvlaki at home and you can hardly buy Greek Pita near the house, the recipe for Greek kebabs also includes ingredients for baking tortillas. Agree, since the method of preparing Souvlaki is classic, then all the ingredients, if possible, should be as Greek as possible. Although, if you don't want to mess around with tortillas, then you can just cook kebabs and serve them with a vegetable side dish. But Souvlaki in Pita will impress the invited guests more with its appetizing and unusual look.

So, let's move on to the list of basic products that will be required for cooking Greek barbecue. For convenience, we will divide it into 2 parts: ingredients for the meat component, and products for the Greek Pita.

We have decided on the list of products - it remains only to find out how to cook Greek Souvlaki at home.

Classic recipe

The technology for preparing Greek kebab contains several stages. Let's start cooking our pork souvlaki by marinating the meat.

Marinade and meat

1. Squeeze lemon juice into a deep bowl. Add olive oil, soy sauce and white wine to it, stir.
2. Preparing spices. We press the garlic or finely chop it, chop the parsley, pass the onion through a blender. Measure out a teaspoon of oregano and rosemary. Pour all the spices into the marinade, add salt and ground pepper to taste, mix.
3. We wash the meat, cut it into small pieces (cubes 2x2), in fact " for one bite».
4. We spread the meat in a vacuum bag, pour the prepared marinade and send it to the refrigerator overnight. ( If there is no package, you can leave the meat in a bowl, covering it with a lid).

We carry out the next stages of preparation the very next day.

Dough for Pita

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water half a glass), after adding ch.l. Sahara.
2. Sift flour, add salt. We make a hole in the flour pea, where we pour the dissolved yeast, olive oil and the remaining warm water. Knead the dough until it is no longer sticky to your hands. Add a little more water if necessary.
3. Put the prepared dough in a greased bowl, cover with a towel and leave to stand for 1.5-2 hours.

While the dough is infused, we will return to our pickled meat.

Roasting kebabs

1. Prepare the skewers by soaking them in water for 15-30 minutes.
2. Thread meat onto skewers.
3. We send our kebab to the grill, grill or fry in a regular frying pan.

The meat is cooked, time to get back to the dough.

We bake cakes (pitas)

1. We knead the settled dough, form balls from it, and roll them into round cakes (1 cm thick and 15 cm in diameter).
2. Bake Pita in the oven (5-7 minutes at a temperature of 230-260 degrees). The main thing is not to overdo the cakes, otherwise they will turn into crackers.
3. Hot pitas are served to the table, and cooled ones can be carefully frozen until the next time. Then it will be enough to fry them in a pan or grill, pre-lubricated with oil and seasoned with salt and oregano for taste.

It remains to remove the meat from the skewers and wrap it in cakes, adding the sauce and garnish. By the way, you can cook a real Greek Tzatziki, which takes literally 15 minutes. The detailed recipe is on the next page. Also goes well with souvlaki coleslaw, French fries, mustard, ketchup, green salad, etc.

You need to wrap the filling in hot cakes (when they are just cooked), otherwise the pita will cool down and begin to crumble. Also, for convenience, we advise you to tightly wrap the bottom of the “envelope” with paper, then the cake will firmly hold the filling.

Some popular souvlaki recipes

It has already been noted that in addition to the classic Greek pork souvlaki, this dish is prepared with other ingredients. Consider several variations of the classic recipe.

Beef souvlaki in the oven

Souvlaki with vegetables

Due to the taste compatibility, meat is often supplemented with vegetables, so in this recipe both components are combined into one dish.

Ingredients: pork 800 gr., zucchini 1 pc., Cherry tomatoes 300 gr., lemon 1 pc. For the marinade: garlic 2 cloves, dried mint, oregano and thyme 1 tbsp. spoon 1 tbsp wine vinegar, 100 ml olive oil, salt, pepper.

Recipe:

1. We are preparing the marinade. In a bowl, mix oil, vinegar and all spices. Squeeze out the lemon juice last. Mix until smooth.
2. We cut the meat into small cubes, cut the zucchini into circles 1.5 cm thick, leave the Cherry tomatoes whole. We put everything in a deep bowl and pour the marinade, mix. We send the finished mixture for at least 1 hour in the refrigerator.
3. Thread meat and vegetables onto skewers.
4. Grill over hot charcoal grill until tender (10 minutes).

The food is very appetizing, juicy and rich. So we recommend that you take a closer look at this tasty and quick snack, which you can treat guests to in the summer at the cottage or picnic.

Chicken fillet souvlaki

Chicken souvlaki is also very popular in Greece. The recipe is similar to the classic one, but instead of pork tenderloin, they take 2-3 pieces of chicken fillet. And since the chicken is a little dry, the marinade will require 1.5 times more olive oil and lemon juice than pork. The finished dish goes well with fried potatoes, vegetable salads and sauces.

Bon appetit!

In contact with

Classmates

It is difficult to find such a resident of Greece who would say that he does not eat souvlaki - the most affordable and adored dish sold here at every turn: in the capital and provinces, cities and villages, on the islands and the mainland.

Everyone in Greece loves souvlaki: rich and poor, schoolchildren and students, professors and clerks, housewives and even prime ministers. And the migrants who settled in the country from different parts of the world liked this delicacy.

And indeed: during a school break or a lunch break, in the evening hours after work or study, while walking around the city or shopping, gathering with friends to watch the game of their favorite football or basketball team, or simply hungry, the inhabitants of the country rush to the nearest local street food (street food), called suvladzidiko (σουβλατζίδικо), to satisfy your hunger with your favorite dish.

Each family carefully stores catalogs and advertising booklets with phone numbers, by which you can choose and order souvlaki at home if the hostess did not have time to cook lunch or dinner, or if friends unexpectedly came to the house for a party.

In any case, you can be sure that the treat will appeal to everyone.

In Greece, it has long been no secret to anyone that many world-famous fast food franchises such as McDonald's or Goodis have suffered a crushing defeat here from small σουβλατζίδικо, offering traditional Greek cuisine, which primarily includes souvlaki.

What kind of treat is this that does not look like either hamburgers, or Bik-Macs with hot dogs, or other “fast food delights”?

Why do the Greeks love it, and not only them, but all those who have tried it at least once in Greece?

What is Greek Souvlaki and where does this dish come from?

Souvlaki (Greek: Σουβλάκι) are small kebabs made from pork or chicken meat, less often lamb or beef, cut into medium-sized pieces and aged in a special marinade of olive oil and lemon juice, with the addition of oregano and other aromatic herbs.
They are strung on short wooden skewers - skewers or skewers resembling a long thick toothpick, the so-called souvla (σούβλα), from which the name of this dish came.

Once upon a time, such skewers were made from cane - "kalami" (καλαμι), so the dish has another name - "kalamaki" (καλαμάκι). By the way, in Greece they also call a straw served with soft drinks or various cocktails.

Such kebabs are fried on charcoal or grill, but sometimes they are also cooked in the oven, however, this method is practiced in cases where it is not possible to make an open fire.

But not only the size and method of marinating souvlaki differ from other types of shish kebabs.

There is a difference in the way the finished dish is served:

The first, and the simplest - after frying they are served in portions, straight on skewers with slices of grilled bread and fried french fries. This method of serving is more common in the South of Greece and in the Greek capital. It is in this way that souvlaki served is called “kalamaki”.

Second, and now more popular- meat removed from the spit is wrapped in pita (lavash) and various salads and sauces are added to it at the request of the client: ketchup, mustard sauce, tomato salad with onions, and fried potatoes.

Souvlaki wrapped in a pita bread resembles another similar dish, which is called “gyro” here (an analogue of shawarma, well known to many tourists).
But the similarity is only external: the meat is also wrapped in pita. Gyro is a completely different dish both in terms of cooking method and taste.

Souvlaki is not only very tasty, but also an economical dish. And, although it is quite high-calorie (460 Kcal with pita), but by eating only one serving, you can satisfy your hunger for a long time.
And the calorie content is not difficult and can be almost halved if you fry the pita without oil and do not add french fries and fatty sauces to the dish.

Thanks to these advantages, souvlaki has been, is and remains a favorite national Greek dish for many centuries.

Don't believe? Here's what history tells us...

Ancient Greeks also ate souvlaki

This fact is easy to confirm!
In 2011, when Bronze Age settlements were excavated on the island, well preserved under a layer of ash from a volcanic eruption that occurred around 1500 BC. e., among other artifacts, to the surprise of archaeologists, they managed to find an interesting object: stone grill! With holes cut inside it for air circulation, where suvla skewers made of hard wood were inserted.

Now this brazier is on display in the local museum of the city of Fira "Museum of Prehistoric Thera".

Greek archaeologist Christos Dumas, who led the excavations, said that the Greeks ate kebabs fried on coals 3,500 years ago. And this is the main proof that then souvlaki is the most Greek dish, and not Turkish at all, as many culinary critics claim.

On such braziers, not only souvlaki were fried, but also meat cut into very small pieces, with the addition of aromatic herbs, fixed on a spit like minced meat for kebab. And again, we can say that kebab was also invented by ancient Greek culinary specialists, the name of the dish was borrowed much later from the Turks during the Ottoman yoke.

The ancient Greek writer Athenaeus from Navkratis, who lived at the turn of the 2nd-3rd centuries AD. e. in his well-known 15-volume book The Feasting Sophists, he describes in detail the dish called kandavlos (Κάνδαυλος) served in the house of the wealthy scientist and philanthropist Lorenzo at a symposium organized in honor of the philosophers and sages of that time, among whom were such famous people as Galen and Plutarch.
The dish described by Athenaeus almost one to one resembles modern souvlaki- meat taken from small skewers, after roasting it on coals, wrapped in a thin bread cake along with cheese and dill.

According to statistics, the Greek dish souvlaki has no serious competitors, they are not even afraid of such a popular dish in the world as sushi!

In the joke that the Hellenes like to repeat that they not only absorbed the love for souvlaki with their mother's milk, but it is embedded in their DNA, there is only a fraction of a joke, and everything else is historical truth.

Souvlaki is a well-known Greek global brand. For tourists coming to Greece, souvlaki have become the same integral symbol of the country as sirtaki, ouzo, feta cheese, and.
Remembering the Greek proverb “A hungry bear does not dance”, we can say: after tasting Greek souvlaki, you will want to dance the incendiary dance “Sirtaki”.

Let's find out how to cook real Greek souvlaki at home.

Classic Greek Souvlaki Recipe

First, let's prepare the pita in which we will wrap our souvlaki.

We will need:

Cooking method

1. Mix yeast with sugar and ½ cup warm water and wait for the yeast to dissolve.
2. Add salt to the sifted flour, make a hole in the center of the flour slide. Pour the dissolved yeast, olive oil and ½ cup warm water into it.
3. Knead the dough, adding warm water as needed until it no longer sticks to your hands and is soft and pliable.
4. Place the dough in a well oiled bowl. After forming a ball out of it, cover the bowl with a clean towel, and let it stand for 1.5 hours so that it infuse and increase in volume.
5. After kneading the dough, form it into round pitas with a diameter of 15 and a thickness of 1 cm.
6. Pita should be baked in the oven at a temperature of 230 °, but not until fully cooked, but only 5~7 minutes.
7. Once the pitas have cooled, put them in plastic bags and put them in the freezer to use when needed.
8. If you need pita, all you have to do is take them out of the freezer and, brushing them with oil on both sides and sprinkling with salt and oregano, fry them on a grill or pan.

For 4 servings of souvlaki, prepare 800 gr. pork tenderloin without veins and tendons, cutting the meat into small, “one bite”, cubes, about 2.5x2.5 cm.

The most basic is the marinade for the future dish, for which mix 4 tablespoons of olive oil, the juice of a small lemon and 1 small glass of white wine.

Add to the mixture:

• 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic;
• ground onion in a blender;
• ½ bunch of parsley;
• 3 tablespoons of soy sauce;
• rosemary;
• oregano;
• salt and pepper.

We prepare souvlaki as follows:

1. Mix everything thoroughly.
2. Pour the sauce over the meat pieces, cover the bowl with a lid and refrigerate the meat overnight so that it is well soaked in the marinade.
3. In the morning, thread the pieces of meat on wooden skewers and fry the souvlaki on coals or on the grill, periodically basting them with the rest of the marinade.
4. Serve the skewers with pita garnished with cherry tomatoes and green salad.

Kali Orexy! Bon appetit!

Ekatirina Aravani told about the most popular dish in Greece

If you are in Cyprus and decide to have a bite to eat, dropping into a cafe or a snack bar, we recommend ordering souvlaki. Not to taste this dish while on the Mediterranean coast is an unforgivable sin. Are you intrigued by what lies behind this original name and, despite the fact that you are not going to Cyprus in the near future, do you dream of tasting it? Make it at home and it's pretty easy too.

Souvlaki are small skewers on wooden skewers. To create them, as a rule, they take pork, but some cooks bake beef, chicken, and even fish skewers. The dish is served both on skewers and in a national flatbread - drink with vegetables and tzatziki sauce. Souvlaki is considered a kind of Greek fast food and can be tasted in almost all fast food restaurants and eateries.

Pork souvlaki

You will need:

• pork - 2 kilograms,
• onion - 2 pieces,
• bell pepper - 2 pieces,
• lemon - 1 piece,
• garlic - 3 cloves,
• olive oil - 4 tablespoons,
• salt - 1 tablespoon,
• dried oregano - 1 teaspoon.

Cooking method

1. My meat. Cut into cubes about 3x3 cm in size.
2. We clean the onion. My. We cut big.
3. My pepper. Remove seeds and stems. Cut into pieces of 2-3 centimeters.
4. We clean the garlic. We pass through the press.
5. Mix freshly squeezed lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and salt.
6. Pour the meat with the prepared marinade.
7. Add onion and pepper. We mix. We send for 3 hours in the refrigerator.
8. After the specified time, we string meat, onion and pepper on skewers.
9. Grill or grill until done.
10. Serve the finished souvlaki along with tzatziki sauce, french fries and vegetable salad.

Pork souvlaki recipe in the oven

Not every housewife has the opportunity to fry shish kebab on the grill or grill. In this case, the oven will come to the rescue.

To cook souvlaki in the oven, you will need:

• pork - 800 grams,
• cherry tomatoes - 200 grams,
• large olives - 200 grams,
• bell pepper - 3 pieces,
• onion - 1 piece,
• Provencal herbs - 2 tablespoons,
• lemon juice - 1 tablespoon,
• salt - to taste,
• lettuce leaves - for serving.

Cooking method

1. My meat. We discuss. We cut into cubes.
2. Season with spices and pour over lemon juice. We mix. Let marinate for an hour.
3. We clean the onion. My. We cut into rings 5 ​​millimeters thick.
4. My pepper. We clean. Cut into cubes the same size as the meat.
5. Drain the liquid from the jar of olives.
6. Thread meat, peppers, olives and cherry tomatoes onto wooden skewers.
7. Put the skewers in a baking sleeve in a single layer.
8. We bake souvlaki for an hour at a temperature of 200 degrees.
9. We spread the finished skewers on a dish covered with lettuce leaves. Serve with tzatziki sauce.

Chicken souvlaki

You will need:

• chicken fillet - 100 grams,
• onion - 1 piece,
• tomato - 1 piece,
• sweet pepper - 1 piece,
• eggplant - 1 piece,
• young potatoes - 1 piece,
• chili pepper - 1/2 piece,
• pitted olives - 10 grams,
• olive oil - 2 tablespoons,
• salt - to taste,
• wig - to taste,
• spices - to taste,
• butter,
• greenery,
• thin cake.

Cooking method

1. My meat. We cut into pieces. Marinate in a mixture of olive oil, spices and onion cut into half rings.
2. My pepper. We remove the seeds. We cut in half.
3. My eggplant. We cut off the stem. We cut into circles.
4. My tomato. We cut into slices.
5. My chili pepper. We chop finely.
6. We bake bell peppers and eggplants on coals or in the oven at a temperature of 180 degrees for 7-10 minutes.
7. Cut the baked pepper into strips.
8. My potatoes. We discuss. We cut straw. Deep fry.
9. Marinated meat is fried over high heat.
10. We wrap freshly fried meat, french fries piping hot and cooled baked vegetables in a hot, buttered flatbread. Sprinkle with herbs and chili peppers, drizzle with tzatziki sauce and garnish with olives. Chicken souvlaki, prepared according to the classic recipe, is ready. Bon appetit!

As you can see, you can diversify souvlaki according to your own taste. Look for your perfect combination and don't be afraid to experiment!