If you decided to spend your weekend out - on the coast or in a country house - you would certainly think about shashlik.
To be satisfied with the process of cooking you have to be prepared for it beforehand. We would like to give you some piece of advice for you to get ready for the weekend and, especially for the "most tasty" part. Preparation for shashlik begins with the choice of meat. Classic shashlik should be prepared from the best parts of excellent mutton: hind quarter flesh - thigh, back and kidney part. It could be rather tasty pork, beef, fish and poultry shashlik. The most important thing is to choose meat properly, marinade it and to find a proper charcoal. Pork barbecue is traditional and more habitual for us in Russia and Ukraine.
The part of pork along the backbone on the neck is ideal. It is the most delicate part of pork where fat veins are evenly spread. The part of meat along the backbone on the back is also suitable; fat should almost be totally deleted.
On buying meat, please, pay attention to the color of meat - it should be pink (it is the sign the meat is fresh). Try not to overtime the meat on coal - the shorter the time of cooking the juicier the meat will be. The meat can be cut in different ways in accordance to each recipe. However, whatever you do the slices should not be small!
200-400 g per one portion. Marinading the meat - is one of the most important steps of its preparation. Marinades supply meat with special flavour.
Each marinade is prepared in accodance to a special recipe that it is preferable not to change. Time of marinading should be chosen according to the type of meat and marinade. In some shashlik recipes meat is not marinaded at all, other recipes offer to marinade meat from 30 minutes up to one day. We would like to offer you to follow the recipes we have already tried. We hope you will like them.
If you have your special recipe and you would like to share it with others you can send it to us and we will place it on our site with the name of its sender. There is a widespread misconception that you have to pour water on the meat during the barbecue process. This practice is wrong. Instead, you should pour water onto the coal to prevent it burning the meat because fat produces fierce flames when it drips on the coal. The heat from the coal is not very intense, so it is not necessary to try and cool down the meat itself. Moreover, temperature contrasts do not push forward the process of cooking. It is necessary to place meat as close to the coal as possible. You should also turn over the meat periodically for it to be done well.
To be sure the barbecue is ready make a slight crimp on the meat - the juice should be of white color. If it is reddish you should continue grilling. If the coal is very good the meat will be ready before it is toasted. You will obtain the best results on grilling the meat above a slow cinder, not above an open fire. As long as one part of your company takes care of barbecue we would suggest that another part think about the accompaniments for it. It is rather difficult to abnegate habitual garnishes but you can try to follow our recommendations.
If you ever managed to integrate barbecue with some other garnishes - we would be happy to setout the table following you piece of advice. The finishing operation to our festive table will be, of course, the selection of wine. If the wine is chosen properly the barbecue will appear tastier.
We would like to offer you some recommendation on the choice of wine. We hope the weekend to be unforgettable.
We wish you bon appetite and excellent weekend!