Pork Skewers (Pinchos de Cerdo)

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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.

Prep Time3

Cook Time8

Marinating20

Total Time31

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Colombian

Keyword: pork licks, pork skewers

Servings:

Calories: 187kcal

Author: Angela Giraldo

Ingredients

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

For the marinade

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

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.

Notes

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.

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