Daring Cooks: Satay (January 2010)
Right! It's the 14th again, otherwise known as 'that time of the month I post food pictures of dubious quality and babble incoherently about cooking'. *g* This month's challenge was satay, chosen by Cuppy of Cuppylicious (Thank you very much for hosting, Cuppy!). And so, without further ado:
Satay
I was quite pleased when this month's challenge was revealed. See, satay's such a common/popular street food in Singapore that any semi-decent hawker centre (places where street food stalls gather) would be bound to have at least one stall selling it. You don't really think about how to make it. You go out and buy it. I've never actually given any thought into how satay was made, so to be given a marinade recipe was absolutely brilliant.
We were given a choice of meat(s); from the quick browse of the already-posted challenges, I think someone even went with kangeroo. I, however, being boring and a picky eater to boot, went with chicken.
These were the ingredients required for the 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)
the obligatory process pictures
top: dicing stuff for the marinade, preparing to marinate
bottom: waiting to be cooked, the actual cooking
(Let us take a moment to admire the cleaver. There's no way I would have been able to chop things finely enough to approximate a rough swirl with a food processer without it. Not a day goes by in London where I don't think fondly (and a little wistfully) of it.
Then I inevitably drop whichever knife it is I'm handling, narrowly missing my foot by inches (or not at all), and suddenly, I'm glad that it's not a cleaver. Though I must say that in all my years of using them, I've never dropped a single cleaver. Must be a small knife thing.
Moving along!)
I was greatly heartened when I took the marinating meat (chicken thighs de-boned and cut into small bits, and I must say the amount of fat I managed to remove before cutting it up horrified me somewhat; to think that's my favourite part of the chickn! *headdesk*) out of the fridge. It smelt satay-ish. All looked well.
Normally, in Singapore, satay is barbequed over hot coals for that wonderful, smoky flavour. However, I wasn't about to yank out the barbeque grill to cook a few tiny sticks of satay (you probably can't tell, but I made them miniature, with the smaller skewers of about 12cm). Instead, I went with pan-frying them on the stove. Or wok-frying, if you will, since the only suitable thing I had at my disposable was the huuuuuuge family wok.
I feel a little bad about saying this, because everyone thus far seems very pleased with the recipe. I liked the recipe too, but! I couldn't help but feel (and my family pretty much agreed) that it wasn't sweet enough. Were I to repeat this recipe, I'd probably add a good dollop of honey and/or a heaping tablespoon or two of brown sugar to it, for a bit of sweetness and to give it a lovely brown caramelisation upon cooking.
I'd probably sear the meat first, too, the next time I cook satay on a stove. Though this might mean using bigger pieces of meat; I'm not entirely certain searing works when the mean is but the thinnest of slivers.
We were also given the recipe for a peanut dipping sauce. Ingredients were as follows:
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)
Plonk it all in a pot over low heat and stir until peanut butter melts.
peanut dipping sauce for satay
I admit I heavily doctored the recipe. Much less coconut milk was used, for one. To the mixture I also added chopped peanuts for extra crunch, sweet chilli sauce, a dash of chilli oil, and sambal belacan (a type of chilli paste made of fresh chillis and toasted shrimp paste). Why yes, I do like my food spicy, thank you very much for asking. Sweet and spicy, so in went an extra spot of sugar too.
Oh! Oh! Admire the container used to hold the sauce. Isn't it adorable? << shameless acquisition pride
In Singapore (and, I suppose, Malaysia, and Indonesia), satay is normally eaten with chopped bits of red onion and cucumber and this packed cake of rice thing called the ketupat. Since I was in Singapore the time I did the challenge...
satay accompaniments: ketupat, red onions, and cucumbers
The green woven thing you see is an unwrapped ketupat. The scattered, tightly-packed clumps of white rice scattered about it (along with the bits of onion and cucumber) are how a ketupat looks like when it's been unwrapped and cut along the lines of the leaves. And before you ask, the ketupats used were store-bought. I haven't mastered the fine art of ketupat-making, I'm afraid. Probably because it's never occurred to me to, the same way it's never occurred to me to learn what goes into satay. *sheepish grin*
And that's that, I suppose!
Blog checking lines: 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.
Satay
I was quite pleased when this month's challenge was revealed. See, satay's such a common/popular street food in Singapore that any semi-decent hawker centre (places where street food stalls gather) would be bound to have at least one stall selling it. You don't really think about how to make it. You go out and buy it. I've never actually given any thought into how satay was made, so to be given a marinade recipe was absolutely brilliant.
We were given a choice of meat(s); from the quick browse of the already-posted challenges, I think someone even went with kangeroo. I, however, being boring and a picky eater to boot, went with chicken.
These were the ingredients required for the 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)
the obligatory process pictures
top: dicing stuff for the marinade, preparing to marinate
bottom: waiting to be cooked, the actual cooking
(Let us take a moment to admire the cleaver. There's no way I would have been able to chop things finely enough to approximate a rough swirl with a food processer without it. Not a day goes by in London where I don't think fondly (and a little wistfully) of it.
Then I inevitably drop whichever knife it is I'm handling, narrowly missing my foot by inches (or not at all), and suddenly, I'm glad that it's not a cleaver. Though I must say that in all my years of using them, I've never dropped a single cleaver. Must be a small knife thing.
Moving along!)
I was greatly heartened when I took the marinating meat (chicken thighs de-boned and cut into small bits, and I must say the amount of fat I managed to remove before cutting it up horrified me somewhat; to think that's my favourite part of the chickn! *headdesk*) out of the fridge. It smelt satay-ish. All looked well.
Normally, in Singapore, satay is barbequed over hot coals for that wonderful, smoky flavour. However, I wasn't about to yank out the barbeque grill to cook a few tiny sticks of satay (you probably can't tell, but I made them miniature, with the smaller skewers of about 12cm). Instead, I went with pan-frying them on the stove. Or wok-frying, if you will, since the only suitable thing I had at my disposable was the huuuuuuge family wok.
I feel a little bad about saying this, because everyone thus far seems very pleased with the recipe. I liked the recipe too, but! I couldn't help but feel (and my family pretty much agreed) that it wasn't sweet enough. Were I to repeat this recipe, I'd probably add a good dollop of honey and/or a heaping tablespoon or two of brown sugar to it, for a bit of sweetness and to give it a lovely brown caramelisation upon cooking.
I'd probably sear the meat first, too, the next time I cook satay on a stove. Though this might mean using bigger pieces of meat; I'm not entirely certain searing works when the mean is but the thinnest of slivers.
We were also given the recipe for a peanut dipping sauce. Ingredients were as follows:
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)
Plonk it all in a pot over low heat and stir until peanut butter melts.
peanut dipping sauce for satay
I admit I heavily doctored the recipe. Much less coconut milk was used, for one. To the mixture I also added chopped peanuts for extra crunch, sweet chilli sauce, a dash of chilli oil, and sambal belacan (a type of chilli paste made of fresh chillis and toasted shrimp paste). Why yes, I do like my food spicy, thank you very much for asking. Sweet and spicy, so in went an extra spot of sugar too.
Oh! Oh! Admire the container used to hold the sauce. Isn't it adorable? << shameless acquisition pride
In Singapore (and, I suppose, Malaysia, and Indonesia), satay is normally eaten with chopped bits of red onion and cucumber and this packed cake of rice thing called the ketupat. Since I was in Singapore the time I did the challenge...
satay accompaniments: ketupat, red onions, and cucumbers
The green woven thing you see is an unwrapped ketupat. The scattered, tightly-packed clumps of white rice scattered about it (along with the bits of onion and cucumber) are how a ketupat looks like when it's been unwrapped and cut along the lines of the leaves. And before you ask, the ketupats used were store-bought. I haven't mastered the fine art of ketupat-making, I'm afraid. Probably because it's never occurred to me to, the same way it's never occurred to me to learn what goes into satay. *sheepish grin*
And that's that, I suppose!
Blog checking lines: 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.