Cyprus

Souvla

Let me just begin this entry by telling you the lengths I went to in order to authentically make this recipe. Souvla is the national dish of Cyprus, and it is highly seasoned lamb or pork kebabs.  Every recipe I looked at required a rotisserie, and not having one, I purchased a Ronco (yes, the one from the infomercial) countertop rotisserie off of amazon.com.  Although I received the rotisserie weeks ago, I didn't open it until the day that I cooked this meal, and upon opening, I realized that the kebab sticks are an add-on that did not come with the rotisserie.  I was so mad!  I bought the freaking thing to make kebabs, and then didn't have the pieces to make kebabs!  So, I ended up having to use the basket, which ended up actually working fairly well.  I also watched the half hour instructional DVD that came with the Ronco, which was really just an infomercial that warned me repeatedly that the machine would get hot.  Duh!

The Ronco in action

Andy, my new roommate Kay and I all enjoyed this dish.  I decided to make a mixture of pork and lamb pieces because the lamb was so expensive.  I served the meat with long-grain rice and broccoli to round out the meal.


Given that I did not have the proper kebab tools, I had to adapt the recipe a bit.  Here's the original:

Souvla

INGREDIENTS:
-3 lbs. lamb or pork shoulder or neck meat, cut into chunks
-5 onions, grated (I used my food processor, which saved a ton of time)
-3 cloves garlic, minced
-juice of 1/2 a lemon
-1/2 c. canola oil
-1 T. ground cumin
-1 tsp. turmeric
-1 tsp. ground coriander
-1 tsp. salt
-1/2 tsp. MSG (I left this out; I forgot to grab it when I moved)
-1 tsp. paprika


DIRECTIONS:
1) Mic onions, garlic, oil and lemon juice.  Marinate meat for no more than 3 hours.
2) Skewer meat on large metal skewers.  In rotisserie, cook over high heat for 5-8 minutes on high speed until sizzling and light golden brown.
3) Wrap meat in aluminum foil.  Cook over medium heat for one hour on low speed, or until meat starts to foam.  Remove foil and sprinkle all spices except paprika over meat.
4) Cook over high heat for 3 minutes.
5) Remove from skewers and sprinkle with paprika.