Kokoretsi Recipe (Greek Spit-Roasted Lamb Offal)

Kokoretsi is genuine nose-to-tail cooking at its most traditional: the lamb's offal, liver, heart, kidney and sometimes sweetbreads, seasoned and wrapped tightly in the cleaned intestines, which act as a natural casing exactly as they would for a sausage, then slow-grilled over charcoal on a spit until the outside turns deeply browned and crisp while the inside stays rich and tender.

It is traditionally cooked on the evening before Easter Sunday, often while the main lamb for the following day's souvla is still resting or being prepared, making it as much a part of the Holy Saturday evening ritual as a dish in its own right, eaten while everyone waits for midnight and the end of the Lenten fast.

This is a genuine specialist project, requiring properly cleaned intestines and organs from a butcher who understands what you are making, and it rewards real patience with the slow, even turning any good souvla-style cook demands.

Key preparation steps

1. Clean and prepare lamb intestines as a natural casing.
2. Season the offal generously with oregano, lemon and garlic.
3. Wrap the seasoned offal tightly with the intestines around a spit.
4. Grill slowly over charcoal, turning constantly, until deeply browned.

Sourcing the offal and intestines

This dish genuinely needs a butcher who can supply properly cleaned lamb intestines alongside the liver, heart and kidney, and it is worth calling ahead specifically around Easter, when demand for exactly these ingredients rises sharply across Greek and Cypriot communities. Ask for everything to be delivered as fresh and clean as possible, since home-cleaning intestines from scratch is a genuinely specialist task.

Preparing and seasoning the offal

Cut the liver, heart and kidney into similarly sized pieces so everything cooks at roughly the same rate, and season generously with salt, pepper, dried oregano, crushed garlic and a good squeeze of lemon. This simple seasoning is genuinely enough, since the offal itself carries plenty of flavour and the slow charcoal grilling adds real depth of its own.

Wrapping and the long, slow grill

Thread the seasoned offal pieces onto a long skewer, then wrap the cleaned intestines tightly around the whole length, tucking and tying the ends securely so nothing unravels during the long cook. Grill over a steady, moderate charcoal fire, turning constantly or very regularly, for two to two and a half hours, until the outside is deeply browned and crisp and the inside is fully cooked through.

Slice into rounds to serve, exactly as you would carve any other spit-roasted dish, and serve hot straight from the fire.

What matters in this dish