How to Keep Meat From Turning Over on a Skewer
Eating meat from a stick is a unique and elegant pleasure. Grilled small pieces of beef, lamb, chicken or seafood are served on a skewer: convenient, tasty and perfect for holding a cocktail (or beer) in one hand in the other.
But the stick can create some problems during the grilling process. If you use a single round wooden stick, your meat can and will spin on its own axis when you flip the skewer. This is obviously a problem, as the goal is to get direct heat and a good browning with plenty of browning on both sides, and you can’t do that if the meat keeps slipping. Luckily, there are two easy solutions.
Take a few non-round skewers.
Without a smooth, round axle, your meat cubes and shrimp won’t have anything to spin on, so most reusable metal skewers are either triangular or flat. Either shape will hold the food still so it won’t have a chance to come back when you turn the skewer over. Plus, you can use them over and over again, which is perhaps less wasteful (please don’t email me about the environmental impact of the reusable skewers manufacturing process).
Or use two wooden skewers.
If you don’t have time to order metal skewers before your next kebab or you’re working with someone else’s setup, you can still prevent the meat from turning over by using two round skewers. As Reddit user angelicusew illustrated in his Reddit post , this eliminates the single axis, making it impossible for the meat to flip when the skewer is rotated.
Either tactic will keep your little meat cubes in place, ensuring they are properly browned on both sides, resulting in expertly browned flavorful meat on a stick. (Because no one wants unevenly cooked unleavened meat on a stick.)