Moorish Kebabs

Name: Moorish Kebabs (Pinchos Morunos)
Yield: Serves 8 as a tapa, 4 as a light main course
Cuisine: Spanish
Ingredients: ½ teaspoon smoked hot Spanish paprika, or ¼ teaspoon cayenne; Coarse salt (kosher or sea); 1 teaspoon dried oregano; 1 teaspoon black peppercorns; 1 tablespoon smoked sweet Spanish paprika; 1 teaspoon ground cumin; 2 teaspoons dried thyme; 1½ pounds pork shoulder or tenderloin, leg of lamb, or chicken breasts or boneless skinless thighs, cut into ¾-inch cubes; ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon; 3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for brushing the kebabs; 2 tablespoons best-quality white wine vinegar; 2 tablespoons dry white wine (optional); 1 bay leaf, crumbled; 4 large garlic cloves, chopped; 2 tablespoons chopped onion

Pinchos Morunos

Preparation info

Serves
8
as a tapa

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The New Spanish Table

By Anya von Bremzen

Published 2005

About

This tapa, found at bars all over Spain, is often singled out as an exemplary fusion dish: a Moorish (moruno) marinade applied to pork, the quintessentially Spanish meat that no Muslim would touch. Though it’s romantic to think that the dish goes back to medieval Arab-Spanish culinary roots, more likely the idea for these brochettes was borrowed from North African immigrants. Either way, the kebabs are wonderful, and taste equally good made with pork, chicken, or lamb. At some bars,

Ingredients

Method

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Part of

Lisa Brock

2 years ago from United States

The marinade is WAY to salty. Good flavor, but need to cut the salt by half or more.

ckbk

2 years ago from United Kingdom

Hi Lisa - sorry to hear that this came out too salty for you. Perhaps the issue could come down to how much of the marinade / paste was left on the kebabs when you cooked them. We sometimes find this can be an issue with jerk marinades too - the marinade needs to be intensely flavoured and salted to ensure those flavors diffuse into the meat, but if you then leave too much of the marinade sitting 'on' the meat, it can be too much. So maybe next time try rubbing off most of the marinade paste?

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