Daring Cooks Challenge, January 2010 - Beef Satay

The January 2010 DC challenge was hosted by Cuppy of Cuppylicious and she chose a delicious Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the book 1000 Recipes by Martha Day.

As Cuppy says, satay is a popular street food world-wide. Who wouldn't love marinated meat-onna-stick that's been grilled and dipped in sauce? Maybe if you're vegetarian, but you can totally do the same to tofu and vegetables.

We were permitted use of any meat we wanted, and could pan-fry, grill or broil. Not having a grill, I opted for broiling, and I went with beef instead of pork because we couldn't find any appropriate pork bits at the store.

I changed some things slightly in the marinade and sauce, to better compensate for our tastes - upped the garlic, because we love garlic, and approximated on the ginger, and used cayenne, chili pepper, and red pepper flakes instead of dragon chili. I also used the blender, because I am slightly lazy, so if you're not using that then mince the ingredients.

Marinade
1/2 onion, quartered
4 garlic cloves
~1 T ginger root (I didn't measure, just hacked off a smallish hunk of one)
2 T lemon juice
1 T soy sauce
1 t coriander
1 t cumin
1/2 t turmeric
2 T vegetable oil
1 lb beef steak tips

Put everything except the meat (duh) in the blender and let it run until all large chunks are broken up, but the marinade is still a bit chunky. Pour it into a zip-loc bag, drop in the steak tips, and smoosh around to cover them all over. Seal the bag, and stick in the refrigerator for several hours. I did this the morning of, and cooked in the evening.

If you are using wooden skewers, put them in a bowl of water at least 20 minutes before you plan to cook the meat. This allows them to soak up water so that they don't catch on fire while in the oven.

When your skewers are ready, slide them into the meat and place them over a glass baking dish (metal grilled insert optional; I opted to use it). Turn your broiler on (to high, if you have an option), move an oven rack to the second highest spot, and slide the dish into the oven. Broil for about 8 minutes, until just beginning to char, flip over, and broil another 5 minutes.

During the last five minutes of broiling prepare the sauce:

Peanut Sauce
3/4 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 T lemon juice
1 T soy sauce
1 t brown sugar
1/2 t cumin
1/2 t coriander

Red pepper flakes, ground chili pepper, and ground cayenne pepper to taste. I used a couple shakes of each.

Put everything in a sauce pan and warm until the peanut butter melts. Serve on the skewers.

I served this with rice and some salad, and my monster thought it was pretty good. No leftovers, so he must be telling the truth.