Pork Skewers with a Beer Marinade (Pinchos)

Name: Pork Skewers (Pinchos de Cerdo)
Prep time: 3 min
Cook time: 8 min
Total time: 31 min
Ingredients: 800 g pork (cut into bite-sized cubes); Salt and pepper; 1 can beer; 2 tablespoons oil; 3 sprigs rosemary; The juice and zest of a lemon; 1 tablespoon soy sauce; 1 teaspoon thyme, sage and oregano (a teaspoon of each)

Pork cut into cubes, threaded onto sticks and left in a beer marinade with rosemary, lemon and soy before it goes on the griddle. The marinade does the work and the cooking takes eight minutes. Makes eight skewers.

Total: 31

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Pork cut into cubes, threaded onto sticks and left twenty minutes in a beer marinade with rosemary, lemon and soy before it goes on the griddle. Eight skewers, eight minutes of cooking.

A short marinade on purpose

Fifteen to twenty minutes, and that is not the recipe being impatient.

Beer and lemon juice are both acidic, and acid does two things to meat: it adds flavour and it starts denaturing the proteins on the surface. Twenty minutes gets the first without much of the second. Several hours gets you pork with a pale, chalky, slightly mushy exterior, which no amount of griddling fixes.

The soy sauce is doing the salting, the rosemary and the dried herbs the aromatics, and the beer is mostly carrying them into the surface of the meat.

Threaded first, then dunked

Most recipes marinate the meat and then thread it. This one assembles the skewers, seasons them with salt and pepper, and puts the whole thing in the bowl.

It is a sensible order. Every surface gets coated at the same time, nothing needs handling with wet hands afterwards, and the skewers come out of the marinade ready to go on the heat.

Griddle, not iron

The last instruction asked for an iron, which in English is what you press shirts with. The Spanish was plancha, a flat griddle, and a heavy skillet does the same job.

Get it properly hot before the skewers go on. Three or four minutes a side over a hot surface gives browning; the same time over a lukewarm one gives grey meat that has steamed in its own marinade.

The sticks are not an ingredient

Eight wooden sticks used to sit in the ingredient list between the pork and the beer, complete with an etc. at the end.

They are equipment. They were being published inside the structured ingredient data that search engines read, which is the kind of thing that makes a recipe card look untrustworthy. The second step still tells you to thread the meat onto them.

More things on a skewer

Pork leg roast — the slow version.
Grilled beef — the same griddle, no marinade.
Herbed grilled chicken wings — dried herbs again.
Homemade barbecue sauce — something to dip them in.

Pork Skewers FAQ

Why is the marinade only twenty minutes?

Because it is acidic. Beer and lemon juice both start breaking down the surface of the meat, and pork left in acid for hours turns chalky and mushy on the outside. This is a marinade for flavour rather than for texture.

Do I marinate before or after threading?

After, which is unusual and practical. The recipe assembles the skewers first and then puts them in the bowl, so everything gets coated at once and they come out ready for the griddle.

How long do they take to cook?

Three or four minutes on each side, so about eight minutes in total, until they are browned and cooked through. Cubes this size cook quickly and pork carries on cooking after it leaves the heat.

Should I soak the wooden sticks?

If you are cooking over a flame, yes, in water for twenty minutes or so, otherwise the exposed ends char. On a griddle or in a skillet it matters less.

Can I use the marinade while they cook?

Yes, and the recipe's own note suggests it: spoon a little over the skewers as they cook so they do not dry out. Do not serve what is left over, since it has had raw pork in it.

What cut of pork?

The recipe says 800 grams of pork and leaves it there. Anything you can cut into even cubes and cook quickly works: loin is leanest, shoulder has more fat and stays juicier on a griddle.

What herbs go in?

Thyme, sage and oregano, a teaspoon of each, plus three sprigs of rosemary. Two of those were buried in a note on the old ingredient list where nobody doing the shopping would see them.

📖 Recipe

Pork Skewers (Pinchos de Cerdo)

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Prep Time: 3

Cook Time: 8

Marinating: 20

Total Time: 31

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Colombian

Keyword: pork licks, pork skewers

Servings: 8

Calories: 187kcal

Author: Angela Giraldo

Ingredients

▢ 800 g pork (cut into bite-sized cubes)
▢ Salt and pepper

For the marinade

Notas

Fifteen to twenty minutes is a short marinade and that is deliberate: the lemon juice and the beer are both acidic, and pork left in acid for hours goes chalky on the outside rather than more tender. This is a marinade for flavour, not for texture. The skewers go into it already assembled, which is unusual and practical, because everything gets coated at once and the sticks come out ready for the griddle. Spoon a little of the marinade over them while they cook, as the recipe's own note suggests, so they do not dry out. Soak the wooden sticks in water first if you are cooking over anything with a flame, or the exposed ends char. Three or four minutes a side is enough for cubes this size, and pork keeps cooking after it comes off the heat.

Instructions

Cut the pork into bite-sized pieces, roughly cubes.
Thread the pieces onto the wooden sticks.
Season the skewers with salt and pepper.
For the marinade, put everything in a bowl together: the beer, the oil, the rosemary, the lemon juice and zest, the soy sauce, the thyme, the sage and the oregano. Mix it and add the skewers.
Coat the skewers well in the mixture and leave them there for 15 to 20 minutes.
Heat a griddle or a skillet with a little oil, and when it is hot, cook the skewers for 3 or 4 minutes on each side, until they are well browned and cooked through.

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