Pork souvlaki with cucumber salad

Main BBQ

Serves 6

Cretan food culture has a crystal-clear gender division that one does not want to mess with: women cook in the kitchen, men cook outdoors, in charge of meat. With dubious macho credentials, we were sceptical about cooking meat in the sun in the company of a bunch of famous local shepherds. Luckily, the souvlaki tasted good and we managed to win over the sceptics. You can do the same, trust us.

Ingredients

1kg	pork shoulder or neck, sinew and skin removed and cut into 2.5cm dice
8	skewers, soaked in water for a couple of hours or overnight
MARINADE
60ml	lemon juice
2 tbsp	olive oil
2 tsp	dried oregano
2 tsp	dried mint, plus extra to finish
1 tsp	ground clove
1 tsp	ground star anise
1 ½ tsp	cumin
1 tsp	flaked chilli
2	garlic cloves, crushed
SALAD
3	garlic cloves, crushed
1	small red onion, half roughly chopped (60g net) and half thinly sliced (60g net)
2 tbsp	olive oil
2 tsp	white wine vinegar
6	lebanese cucumbers, cut on an angle into ½ cm slices (600g net)
2	green peppers, cut into thin strips ½ cm thick (370g net)
½ tsp	nigella seeds
15g	dill, roughly chopped
15g	mint, roughly chopped
YOGHURT SAUCE
1	courgette, coarsely grated (200g net)
250g	greek yoghurt
2 tbsp	olive oil
2	cloves garlic, crushed
60ml	lemon juice
50g	unsalted butter
	salt

Method

Soak the skewers over night to stop them from burning.
Place all the ingredients for the marinade in a bowl with 1 teaspoon of salt. Mix well, pour over the pork and leave in the fridge, covered, for 2 hours or overnight.
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Skewer the pork whilst heating up your ridged grill plate, making sure to ventilate your kitchen. Ideally you would use a BBQ to grill the pork but a ridged grill plate works well.
Place the skewers in batches on the grill and cook for 5 minutes, turning so that all sides are nicely charred. Transfer to a large baking tray, 30 by 40 centimetres, and finish cooking in the oven for 20 minutes, until the meat is cooked through and tender.
To make the yoghurt sauce, mix the courgettes with ¼ teaspoon of salt and leave to drain for 5 minutes. Gently squeeze out the excess liquid and place in a medium bowl. Stir through the yoghurt, oil, garlic, lemon juice and ¾ of a teaspoon of salt. Place the butter in a small pan and cook on a medium heat until it bubbles, turns a light golden brown and has a nutty aroma. Remove from the heat, set aside for 5 minutes to cool and then stir into the yogurt. Sprinkle a little dried mint on top of the yoghurt and keep in the fridge until ready to use.
To make the salad, place the garlic, chopped onion, oil and vinegar in a pestle and mortar with ¾ teaspoon of salt. Crush to make a paste and set aside. Place the sliced onions in a large bowl with the cucumber, peppers, nigella seeds and the paste. Mix the dill and mint in just before serving, alongside the skewers and yogurt sauce.