January Daring Cooks Challenge: Satay Any Way

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. 

This was definitely my favorite Daring Cooks Challenge to date.  In our house, we LOVE satay.  And in these leaner times, we often do without as we're avoiding takeout.  How excited was I to find that this months challenge would allow me to experiment at home with one of my favorite things. 

The challenge allowed for us to use any sort of protein (or vegetable if we wanted) to make our satay.  I decided on chicken mainly because of the availablity at the store, again relying on Trader Joe's organic free range chicken tenders.  I also wanted to try beef or pork, but the cuts available weren't ideal at the time.  I am getting ahead of myself, but with this recipe, I will be trying all possible iterations in the future.

Each DC challenge revolves, generally, around a skill or technique.  The technique this month was marinating the meat.  It might sound laughable, since I got to work on this skill while traipsing around New York City seeing my friends and sleeping late and curling up with a book, but I really appreciated the opportunity to think about the components of a marinade and the goals such a marinade is intended to serve.

This marinade is a combination of oil, garlic, onions, ginger, lemon juice, soy sauce, cumin, coriander and turmeric.  I also made the additions recommended to make the recipe more traditionally Thai - extra ginger and fish sauce.  Apparently Thai-style also calls for dragon chilis which I did not seek out, but will next time.  As Cuppy taught us, the acidic elements help to tenderize the meat while the flavor components seep into the meat over the marinating period and really infuse flavor into the meat.  For chicken, which I've said I'm not so terribly fond of, the effect is fabulous.

I let the meat marinate for longer than suggested - about 26 hours.  This was chiefly due to a last minute dinner invite that superseded the need to cook the chicken immediately.  I think this accident of time helped the whole process and I would certainly consider keeping a similar marinade time if I was prepared enough in advance.

The next big step in the process was creating the peanut dipping sauce.  I've been searching for the perfect peanut sauce recipe for at least 6 years when I made it and lost it.  This recipe blended coconut milk (which I believe is key), peanut butter, soy sauce, lemon juice, sugar, cumin, coriander and chilis.  I think the ratio of peanut butter to coconut milk should be higher, but all in all, the sauce was tasty and a great accompaniment to the chicken.

Once the chicken was marinated and the sauce was started, I popped the chicken under the broiler until crispy and browned.  The end result had a beautiful deep flavor with an almost buttery tenderness.  While I may experiment further to find my perfect peanut sauce, I will search no further for a satay marinade. 

I served the chicken and sauce with caramelized broccoli which I wlll write about separately since it was also a great new approach to the vegetable for me.  I am happy to say that we have once again conquered the takeout beast and will be making this dish repeatedly in the future.

Satay Marinade

1/2 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 T ginger root, chopped (optional) (2 cm cubed)
2 T lemon juice (1 oz or 30 mls)
1 T soy sauce (0.5 oz or 15 mls)
1 tsp ground coriander (5 mls)
1 tsp ground cumin (5 mls)
1/2 tsp ground turmeric (2-2.5 mls)
2 T vegetable oil (or peanut or olive oil) (30 mls)
1 pound of pork (loin or shoulder cuts) (16 oz or 450g)

Feeling the need to make it more Thai? Try adding a dragon chili, an extra tablespoon of ginger root, and 1 tablespoon (0.5 oz or 15 mls) of fish sauce. (I keep some premature (still green) dragon chili peppers in the freezer for just such an occasion.)

Directions:
1a. Cheater alert: If you have a food processor or blender, dump in everything except the pork and blend until smooth. Lacking a food processor, I prefer to chop my onions, garlic and ginger really fine then mix it all together in a medium to large bowl.
2a. Cut pork into 1 inch strips.
3a. Cover pork with marinade. You can place the pork into a bowl, cover/seal and chill, or place the whole lot of it into a ziplock bag, seal and chill.

Peanut Sauce

3/4 cup coconut milk (6 oz or 180 mls)
4 Tbsp peanut butter (2 oz or 60 mls)
1 Tbsp lemon juice (0.5 oz or 15 mls)
1 Tbsp soy sauce (0.5 oz or 15 mls)
1 tsp brown sugar (5 mls)
1/2 tsp ground cumin (2.5 mls)
1/2 tsp ground coriander (2.5 mls)
1-2 dried red chilies, chopped (keep the seeds for heat)

1. Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl. Add soy sauce and lemon, mix well.
2. Over low heat, combine coconut milk, peanut butter and your soy-lemon-seasoning mix. Mix well, stir often.
3. All you’re doing is melting the peanut butter, so make your peanut sauce after you’ve made everything else in your meal, or make ahead of time and reheat.