Greek Souvlaki

Souvlaki is a Greek word, the diminutive form of souvla, or spit, like the spit used to roast a whole animal. Thus the word souvlaki refers skewers, or to the small chunks of meat, usually pork but sometimes lamb, chicken, or fish, grilled on small skewers over a fire. Often served still on the skewer, in fast food terms, Souvlaki can also refer to a sandwich, similar to a gyro, where the souvlaki meat, removed from the skewer, is served in a pita with onion, tomato, and tzatziki sauce.

Or at least that’s how I’ve always had it. According to Wikipedia, it can be served with fried potatoes, lettuce, ketchup, mustard, feta cheese spread, potato salad, or eggplant salad, tomato sauce, shredded cabbage… I’ve never seen these sandwich fillings offered, and it might take a trip to Greece to arrange it. Perhaps some day.

But for this go-round with Souvlaki, I would have to settle for Greektown in Chicago. As it happened, on a Sunday early in May, the streets were closed for the annual Greek Heritage parade, showcasing traditional costumes, floats, banners, speeches about Turkish war crimes, and representatives from seemingly every Greek church and social organization in the Chicagoland area.

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Slipping into town an hour or two before the parade started, we were able to get a table at Greek Islands, a popular Greektown spot, before the crowds started piling into that short stretch of Halsted Street.

Greek Islands had Souvlaki on the menu, but I was surprised to learn that not only was it not served as a sandwich, it was not even served with a pita to make one’s own sandwich. Instead, I ordered a dish called Kontosouvli, which consisted of pork sliced off a larger roast on a spit, served with pita and a yogurt and horseradish sauce, along with the requisite onion and tomato slices.

The seasoning of this pork was not much like the Souvlaki I remembered, and the yogurt sauce was almost nothing like tzatziki sauce. But it was satisfying, and almost scratched the itch, especially once I’d constructed something like a sandwich of it.

After enjoying the parade and some walking around the near west side though we decided to make another stop while in the city, to visit more of a fast-food Greek spot that served the Souvlaki I knew.

Central Gyros is an old-school casual Greek restaurant, though seemingly redecorated somewhat after a recent fire. They carry the typical Greek-American fast food items such as Gyros and Souvlaki, Spanakopita and Greek salad, and the ubiquitous flaming cheese treat Saganaki, and American fare such as cheeseburgers, in addition to a few deeper cuts like lamb chops, Pastitsio, Moussaka, and Dolmades.

We’d only eaten lunch a couple hours before, but Mindy was inspired by the frequent cries of Opa! we’d heard while at Greek Islands (including a daring waiter who held three plates of cheese along one arm and lit them all within inches of the back of my head) to order Saganaki, while Ian and I both opted for Souvlaki.

A side note on Saganaki–man, this stuff is the best. How did we not order it at Greek Islands? The Central Gyros version is particularly good, a nice funky cheese and a strong flavor of lemon to cut through it.

As for the souvlaki–it was delicious, of course, perfectly grilled and seasoned pork, plenty of good tzatziki sauce, just the right amount of tomatoes, and enough onions that I had to scrape about half of them out of the sandwich (fairly typical for most Greek fast food joints). Not terribly photogenic, but good.

I am not ashamed to admit that I ate the whole thing, after eating a giant plate of meat at Greek Islands earlier. This was the souvlaki I was looking for! I am only slightly ashamed that I would have eaten even more of Mindy’s Saganaki if she’d let me.

When I get on a sandwich kick, I can be somewhat exhaustive (and exhausting), dragging my family all around town to try different places. With Souvlaki though, what variance there is comes mostly from the freshness of the meat off the fire and the quality of the other ingredients, not from wildly different flavors or techniques. Still, I wanted to try another version, one that was not necessarily served as a sandwich (but would have the necessary ingredients on hand when I decided I wanted to make one). For this purpose, we tried one more souvlaki, this time at Kefi Greek Cuisine + Bar in Palos Heights.

Kefi serves a Souvlaki sandwich on pita, but they also serve Souvlakia–that is, the plural of souvlaki–with a single pita, a large portion of tzatziki, and fries as a side. Or I suppose they could go in the sandwich with the souvlaki. I wish I’d thought of it at the time.

However, first, more saganaki! Kefi’s version wasn’t quite as strongly flavored as what we had at Central Gyros, but the waiter wasn’t shy about firing it up right next to the table.

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Then came the main event. My order of souvlakia consisted of five small wooden skewers of marinated, grilled pork, cut into smaller pieces than many places do, but grilled perfectly to be browned on the outside and juicy on the inside.

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The platter did not come with onions or tomatoes, but Mindy helped me out with a few from her Greek salad, and I returned the favor by giving her one of my skewers. Even stuffing 2 skewers into the sandwich left me 2 more to eat on their own, simply dipping them into a little tzatziki sauce, and to be honest this is a fine method for eating souvlaki when it’s cooked so well. Lean pork, lightly marinaded and cooked just right, needs little garnishment.

The Inevitable DIY

The basic flavor of the marinade used for Souvlaki meat is simple–olive oil, lemon juice, and dried herbs, mostly oregano. Some salt and pepper doesn’t hurt, and some garlic wouldn’t be out of place, but it’s a fairly simple recipe, the kind you can wing at home without much preparation. So of course that’s what I did.

Tzatziki sauce is also easy to throw together–Greek yogurt, some shredded cucumber, garlic, mint and/or dill (I prefer mint), and a little salt. With some pitas from our usual haunt Almawal Bakery thrown briefly on the grill to warm them up, and some thin slices of onion and thicker slices of tomato, they made a terrific dinner.

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The meat from a single skewer was enough for a single sandwich–maybe even a touch too much, but with plenty of tzatziki, they went down smooth. I used pork tenderloin, quite lean and easy to overcook, but it took on the marinade well and charred up nicely without dripping fat flaring up and burning it.

While the souvlaki I got at the various restaurants where I tried it was as good as or better than my homemade version, I will still keep this in my wheelhouse. I much prefer gyros to souvlaki, so I’ll likely default back to them in the future when eating out at a Greek place. If I get the itch for souvlaki, it’s far easier to whip up a batch of souvlaki at home than it is to make homemade gyros.