Sate Beef with Peanut Sauce...a DB Challenge

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.
It is far more common in my family to make Sate Chicken rather than Sate Beef, but in the interest of using up the large quantities of beef in the freezer and trying something different.....this time I opted to try Sate Beef. I pulled out a large sirloin steak from the freezer, let it half thaw.......then cut it into 1 1/4 inch wide chunks. I then turned each of these long chunks onto it's newly cut side and sliced down the length of each piece (across the grain) to cut the strip into 3 new thinner pieces. After mixing the marinade ingredients, I tossed them and the meat strips into a large ziploc bag and let them sit for the day.As sirloin is not a very tender piece of meat, I added a pinch of baking soda dissolved in a tbsp of water into the bag for the last 15 minutes and massaged the bag to get the baking soda evenly dispersed. If you are going to add baking soda (and leave it in the marinade) to tenderize meat you must use it sparingly and only for a short amount of time. You could also treat the meat with a baking soda solution, (use 1/2 tsp dissolved in 2 tbsp water per lb of meat) let sit 15-20 minutes then rinse and dry the meat before continuing with the marinade process....but it was just more convenient for me to add the last bit in at the end and leave it in. Again, when leaving baking soda in and not rinsing it out, you must be careful not to use too much or you may taste it........and also not to leave it too long as it only needs 15 minutes to do the job. Normally I would have treated the meat with the baking soda and rinsed it before continuing with the marinade....but this day I was pressed for time. This method also works well for treating tougher cuts for stir fry or kebabs.
This ended up being the perfect little something to bring along to the neighbours for New Years Eve. Want to take a minute to see some other Daring Cooks?.....If you'd like to try this recipe, here is what you need to do.

Sate 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.

4. If using wooden or bamboo skewers, soak your skewers in warm water for at least 20 minutes before preparing skewers.
5. Gently and slowly slide meat strips onto skewers. Discard leftover marinade.*
6. Broil or grill at 290°C/550° F (or pan fry on medium-high) for 8-10 minutes or until the edges just start to char. Flip and cook another 8-10 minutes.

* If you’re grilling or broiling, you could definitely brush once with extra marinade when you flip the skewers.

Peanut Sauce
1 tsp Masaman Curry paste
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp peanut butter
3 tbsp tamarind juice
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp paprika
1tsp garlic powder
2 c coconut milk
4 tbsp crushed peanuts

Bring all to boil, stir 15 minutes on medium heat until liquid had reduced to 1 1/2 cups. Serve with sate chicken, pork or beef.