How not to do it: 5 gross mistakes in cooking shish kebab

You are probably good at cooking shish kebab, but as you know, there is no limit to perfection! We decided to once again remind you of the gross mistakes in the preparation of fried meat, which are most often called well-known professional chefs and butchers.

The best way to prepare meat for a barbecue is to marinate the pieces with a large amount of coarsely chopped onions, salt and crushed black pepper. That's it! Any other complex and aggressive marinade will only spoil everything.

Excess acid has a bad effect on the texture of meat and its taste. For shish kebab, choose initially not hard, not sinewy parts, then no "softening" is needed, especially since the acid does not soften the meat as it is commonly believed. If you really want to add something sour, take a little soft vinegar, rice or apple, but no more than a teaspoon per kilogram of meat.

Good and fresh meat does not need to be not only aggressively marinated, but also overcooked to a dried state. Pork shish kebab is better to fry until it is no longer pink, but still juicy inside.

The main rule for frying any meat - outside the pieces should be confidently ruddy and fried, and inside remained juicy.

For all types of red meat (and for pork, too), it is enough to warm it up to 63 degrees in the thickest part of the piece. The chicken needs to be fried a little harder, but not more than to 74 degrees inside. Professional chefs use a special thermometer for this purpose.

The water does not allow the meat to fry outside, because it evaporates and cools the surface of the shish kebab.

If the meat burns, you need to reduce the heat or move the skewer to the less hot side of the grill, and not try to put it out with water. Watering it with beer, wine, and even more oil during the frying process is also not recommended.

Many modern cooks believe that chicken thigh is the perfect meat for shish kebab. It is juicier, there is a little fat, the meat is stringy and delicious. Chicken breast, however, is also good.

By the way, experts do not recommend buying already peeled chicken thighs — all the juices and flavors have already come out of them. Buy thighs on bone and skin, then remove everything yourself, leaving some bone and cartilage.

Marinate chicken shish kebab best in dairy products (it forms the same golden crust!), adding a little mayonnaise, sour cream, vegetable oil, paprika, chili pepper and salt. In the marinade, the meat should be left for about four hours.

By the way, it is also recommended to cook the chicken on a skewer, and not on the grill, so that it is not fried from two sides, but from all at once.

But this is worth remembering once and for all: the lamb does not need a marinade. Only at the very end of cooking, you can sprinkle the meat with coarse salt. But it is at the end!

The fact is that unsalted meat "cries" slowly, and the juice remains inside during frying. If you salt the meat at once, all the juice will come out, and the pieces will be unnecessarily tough.