How to Marinate Shashlik

Preparing the meat

1. Connoisseurs say every meat needs its own marinade. A marinade makes meat juicy, tender and soft. It also cuts the cooking time considerably.

2. Cut the meat into big pieces of about 100 g and trim off the membranes. Pound tough meat lightly or pierce it with a thin knife in several places, the way my friend did.

3. Cut the onions into large pieces and mix them with the meat. The ideal onion is small and oblong rather than round: cut it lengthwise into 2 or 4 pieces, and it stays on the skewer better than rings do.

Marinade

1. The usual rule is to mix marinade and meat in a ratio of 1:10. The amounts in the marinades below are for 2.5–3 kg of meat.

   Hot marinating, in a boiling marinade, is rarely used. The usual method everywhere is a raw marinade, a mix of ingredients. Still, a boiling marinade suits game very well: venison, roe deer, wild boar.

2. My friend’s marinade: half a kilo of onions put through a meat grinder, 1 tsp coarse salt (5 g), very coarsely ground black pepper and allspice, 1–2 cloves. A full glass of chopped herbs: basil, cilantro, mint, parsley. And half a liter of abgora, the fermented juice of unripe grapes.

   Abgora is quite exotic. My friend did say you could use grape vinegar instead, but he made such a face that it was scary. “Pomegranate juice is better,” he’d add, and his expression softened a little.

   

3. Or pick a marinade to suit your meat. Over the years I’ve come across several interesting ways to marinate shashlik, although some of them do contain grape vinegar:

   • For pork neck. One glass of wine vinegar, a glass of dry white wine, 2 bay leaves crumbled in your palms, chopped parsley, salt.
   • Pork, chicken drumsticks. A quarter glass of lemon juice, a teaspoon of ground cinnamon (3 g), 3–4 cloves crushed, a teaspoon of ginger (2 g), ground coriander, salt, pepper.
   • Lamb, veal. A glass of pomegranate juice (real juice, not the drink from a carton), chopped marjoram, parsley and dill, salt.
   • Pork tenderloin. A glass of orange juice, freshly squeezed, half a glass of cognac, chopped parsley and marjoram, a crumbled bay leaf, coarsely ground black pepper, salt.
   • Pork ribs. A glass of tomato juice, lemon juice, a grated onion, a clove of garlic, ground ginger, salt.
   • Lean pork, rabbit. A glass of rich homemade sour cream, a tablespoon of grated horseradish, parsley, and a teaspoon of ordinary ready-made mustard (5 g).
   • For any meat. Half a kilo of cherry plums: pit them and chop in a meat grinder or blender. A glass of dry wine, pepper, salt and a little ground chili. If you have homemade tkemali sauce , it works well too. I sometimes use it to make very tasty pork loin.
   • Improvised. Pepper, salt, onion cut into rings, a little vinegar and, usually, a bottle of some cheap wine.
   

Marinating and grilling

1. Pour the marinade over the meat, mix and leave to marinate. Marinating time depends on the meat: chicken for 1–2 hours, pork for 3–5 hours, and lamb for a long time, more than 4 hours.

   Badly marinated meat will be grilled and eaten. But meat that has sat in the marinade too long can turn out inedible.

2. Thread the meat onto skewers together with pieces of onion and brush with fat.

   

3. Grill over coals. My friend grilled the meat himself, chasing us away so we wouldn’t grab it off the fire.

   

Serving

1. Serve with vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers) and a sauce: tomato or tkemali.

   I’m sure everyone has their own recipes and tricks, and marinating shashlik is no trouble for you. Marinating shashlik is like music: everyone plays it their own way. Try it! Experiment! Remember what works!