A spiedie is a grilled kabob of meat that is traditionally served on a slice of Italian bread. When I first graduated college I copied down a spiedie marinade recipe from the newspaper and have played with it over the years, tweaking it to my own taste. I have tried it with many different meats and never serve it on bread, I always serve it with grilled veggies and a rice dish of some sort on the side.
We hosted a dinner party earlier this month where all of the guests selected a cut of lamb and then brought a dish to share. I immediately thought of my spiedie recipe and it turned out very tasty! One of our dinner guests brought a food writer visiting from out of town, who ended up suggesting writing an article based on the lamb dinner with some of the recipes, including the spiedies. An art director, food stylist, photographer and chef came to our tiny little podunk town yesterday to photograph the results. The chef re-created the recipes in his kitchen almost a 4 hour drive from here. He elected to sear and then bake a leg of lamb marinated in the spiedie marinade, then sliced it for sandwiches. He was very happy with the result, so were we! For contrast and comparison, the first photograph is from yesterday's photo shoot, the second one is from our dinner party a few weeks ago. You can hardly tell the difference, right?
Anyway, I'm happy to share this awesome marinade recipe that goes with pretty much any kind of meat. I've also included my balsamic grilled vegetable marinade recipe below the photos.
Take 3 lb. of meat appropriate for grilling, trimmed and cut into 1 inch cubes. This could be lamb leg or shoulder, steak, chicken breast or thick cut pork chops. Mix all marinade ingredients together and immerse the meat for 2-24 hours. Place them on a skewer and grill until done (my husband takes care of this part). Note: You can cut the marinade recipe in half if you'd rather grill less meat, although this makes for great leftovers.
Spiedie Marinade:
¾ cup red wine vinegar
½ cup olive oil
5 crushed cloves of garlic
1 tsp. Parsley
1 tsp. Oregano
½ tsp. Mint
Dash of red pepper flakes, to taste
3 sprigs of fresh rosemary
Salt and pepper to taste
Balsamic Grilled Vegetables
Marinade:
½ cup balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
4 crushed cloves of garlic
¾ cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Cremini mushrooms
Red or orange bell pepper, seeded and cut into 1 inch pieces
2-3 peeled zucchini, cut into 1 inch pieces
You can use any other vegetable appropriate for grilling, these are my faves.
Whisk together marinade ingredients and soak cut vegetables in it for 30 minutes to 2 hours. Remove the vegetables from the marinade, place them on skewers and grill the vegetables until just cooked through.
