Romania's grill-party skewers of marinated pork, chicken, or mutton cubes alternated with onion, pepper, bacon, and sometimes sausage, named from frigare ('spit'). They represent the Ottoman shish kebab absorbed into Romanian cookout culture and typically use paprika-and-thyme marinades rather than Turkish spicing.
Also known as: frigărui, frigarui, frigăruie, Romanian skewers
Watch it made
Ingredients
- 700 g pork neck, in 3 cm cubes
- 150 g smoked bacon (kaizer), in thick squares
- 2 onions, in petals
- 2 bell peppers, in 3 cm squares
- 60 ml sunflower oil
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 tbsp sweet paprika and 1 tsp dried thyme
- Salt and pepper
- Mustard or mujdei (garlic sauce), to serve
How to make it
- 1
Turn the pork through oil, garlic, paprika, thyme and pepper; marinate 2 hours.
- 2
Build the skewers so a square of smoked bacon flanks every cube of pork, with onion and pepper between.
- 3
Salt, then set over medium coals on the gratar.
- 4
Cook 12-15 minutes, turning regularly, until the pork is cooked through and the bacon corners have gone crisp.
- 5
Rest briefly and serve with mustard or mujdei and plenty of bread.
Pro tip: Bacon placement is the whole architecture: one smoked square against each pork cube bastes both neighbors as it renders. Skewers assembled for looks instead of fat-flow are how frigarui ends up dry.
