Souvlaki Done With Flair

Hello friends. As many of you know, I visit a dear friend of mine in Europe from time to time. Greece, to be exact. The food in Athens is incredible—cheap and tasty. One of my favorites is a Greek fast food known as souvlaki. It’s meat (pork or chicken), tomatoes, onions, smothered in a sauce known as tzatziki (yogurt and cucumber), all wrapped in a pita bread.

Souvlaki is Greece’s version of our burgers here in the United States. When you’re about to go out on a Friday night, you might stop someplace and get a souvlaki before experiencing the incredible nightlife of Athens. And you can find them anywhere, on practically any street corner.

So naturally, when I’m back here at home in South Florida, and I have a craving for souvlaki, there are two things I can do. Go out to a Greek restaurant, of which there are many here in the Miami area, or I can try making it myself. When I decide on the latter, it’s usually on the spur of the moment and I don’t have all the ingredients at hand.

The two ingredients that are an absolute must for making a good souvlaki are pita bread and tzatziki. Everything else is readily available in my refrigerator. Tzatziki is not a problem either. I love the creamy white sauce and usually have a container in my fridge I get from the grocery store. The pita bread is another story, however. I don’t usually buy it, but recently when the souvlaki craving has hit me, I’ve been forced to improvise.

If you’re really desperate, a good substitute for pita bread are tortillas, which is always available in my home. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Making souvlaki with tortillas instead of pita may seem like sacrilege. An act so heinous, it would make King Leonidas spin in his grave. (Which I’ve actually visited when I went to Sparta, by the way.)

However, I still maintain that tortilla souvlaki tastes great. Not exactly authentic, but yummy nevertheless. When I get the craving, that’s exactly what I use to make this delicious Greek food, but there is a funny twist to this story.

When I was in Greece a few months ago, my friend, her daughter, and I were going to stream a movie one night and decided to order some souvlaki before we settled in to watch. My friend’s daughter was doing the ordering and she asked if I wanted my souvlaki with pita or tortilla…

I almost fell off my chair. Who would have thought what I was doing back home had become chic in Greece. Apparently, a lot of health conscious Greeks are doing it too now since a tortilla is thinner, therefore less bread than a pita, and tastes great when used for a souvlaki. Just goes to show you, when it comes to good food, there shouldn’t be any limits.

G.C. Riley