Sawaddee ka welcome to hot thai kitchen so today i'm making a super classic thai street
food satay and peanut sauce now in thailand the vast majority of satay is made from pork but today
we're going to go back in history and make the original satay that came to thailand which was
made from beef or neau satay neua means beef and satay means satay and i'm also
going to show you a couple tricks one for how to make sure your beef is tender and two
how to make sure your skewers do not burn on the grill without having to soak them alright let's
get started let's start with the marinade i've got here coriander seeds and cumin seeds both
of which have been toasted yes you want to toast them for best flavor i'm also going
to add some black pepper which is the pepper to use with beef gonna get this ground up for now
okay once it's all a powder like this we're gonna go in with our tough herbs first being lemongrass
also some chopped galangal if you don't have this you don't have to add it turmeric i'm using fresh
turmeric here but you can also use dried but i do prefer the flavor of fresh i find with dry
turmeric powder it's very easy to overdo but with fresh you know it's a lot more forgiving
okay so you want to get it quite fine just like so and now the remaining ingredients go
in i've got some cinnamon brown sugar you can use white sugar it's not a big deal a little salt and
some vinegar a little acidity in beef marinade is always helpful
for flavor and also it helps tenderize the meat just a little bit and then we're going to need
a lot more liquid than this and the liquid is going to be coconut milk and that's not only
going to keep the meat juicy the fat will also help prevent the meat from drying out on the grill
give this a swirl i just love using mortar and pestle it's like it's a mixing bowl it's a grinder
it's a food processor it's a workout machine i mean it's just everything
okay we'll set that aside for now let's look at our beef for the beef i'm using top sirloin here
it's great for skewers but you can use anything else that's grilling friendly but keep it on the
tender side if you can now my trick for maximizing the tenderness of any kind of cut that you
use is you don't want to just start slicing this willy-nilly you want to first determine what
direction the grain is running and slice against the grain so for some steaks like flank the grains
are going to run this way right which means you can just slice and you're good to go but for some
such as top sirloin the grains are going to run up and down so if you start slicing like this
you're going to end up with long muscle fibers which means chewier beef and with skewers you do
not want chewy anything so what you would do then you would slice about an inch which is the width
of our skewers or whatever width that you want and then turn it sideways and then you cut this way
and then you get really short muscle fibers which will be more tender so you want a quarter inch and
this is a little long because for skewers i want each piece to be exactly one bite because you
don't want to be you know you we've all been there you pull a skewer and then this enormous piece
follows you and it's awkward and ungraceful you don't want that so you want bite size pieces any
connective tissue here we want to trim out because that's going to be chewy for this i'm going to do
three pieces there we go if you find your meat is really squishy and it's hard to slice thinly on
this piece you can cut it into cubes first i find it a little bit easier to make thin slices when
it's not squishing around under your hands also putting the beef in the freezer briefly before
you cut is a really good trick as well it makes it colder firmer and easier to slice so this was
in the freezer for 30 minutes before we started the reason that satay started out as beef satay
because it actually came to thailand via indonesia which is a predominantly muslim country and
therefore their satay was made from beef or lamb but in thailand pork is the most accessible widely
consumed meat so over time it just kind of morphed into pork all right so now the marinade just goes
immediately into the sink you do not want drippage with turmeric anywhere
on your workspace just a pro tip i'm using gloves to mix this because with flat pieces of meat it's
very easy to have something like this happen and then the inside never gets access so i
find that with hands you can really just massage it and you you can get all the pieces separated
a bigger bowl would make this much easier now ideally i like to do this the day before so it has
like a whole day to marinate but if you've got because the pieces are so thin if you've got
an hour it will also be okay all right let's make the sauce peanut sauce authentic legit thai peanut
sauce right here and it's really easy i'm going to start with just a little bit of my coconut milk
i'm going to bring that to a boil once the coconut milk is boiling i'm going
to go in with my curry paste i'm using red curry paste here now get all the lumps out
you want to keep stirring and keep the heat sort of medium because curry paste can burn
rather quickly now i'm going to let that cook and reduce until the coconut oil separates from
the coconut milk and the paste classic thai curry technique you've seen me do many times before you
can see evidence of red shiny oil coming out that means you are doing something right and the reason
you want to do this is you don't want the curry paste to just boil in the coconut milk you want it
to fry in it to really get that temperature high and develop lots of nice flavor that is the sound
of thai curry making i'm happy with that i'm going to go in with the rest of the coconut milk
give that a stir and then of course we've got to have peanuts no peanut butter okay peanut butter
is not a thai ingredient i never heard of peanut butter until my dad brought it back from america
and i thought oh wow this is really cool in thai cuisine we only use ground peanuts either you
can do it my morton pestle or you can use a food processor to do it really quickly but you still
want texture a little bit unevenness is totally okay the texture is really really important we
don't want smooth paste as an option instead of using all peanuts you can also do some toasted
white sesame seeds you don't have to and now let's give it a little seasoning some palm sugar
and a little tartness some tamarind just a touch of fish sauce the curry paste that i'm using
is a little salty so i'm just gonna go gently on it and then adjust later okay so now this just has
to simmer until it's got that thick luscious peanut sauce consistency which is gonna take
five to ten minutes depending on how strong the heat is you wanna keep stirring occasionally to
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here's the beef that i marinated yesterday now i'm going to show you how to prevent
your skewers from burning on the grill without having to soak them because i always forget to
soak my skewers so this is what i've been doing it works really well i skewer right through
i don't like to lace it because when you lace like you know what i'm talking about lacing like this
a part of the skewer is exposed and then also the beef doesn't lay flat and it won't have a nice
sear on the grill so you want to maximize contact in thailand satay skewers are very very small so
you only need like they're like snacks you know so you need like three pieces per skewer final trick
is you make sure that the last piece cover the tip that'll prevent the tip from burning and also
it just looks much nicer when it's neat like that satay to me is such a nostalgic dish because when
i was little we used to frequent this restaurant where they had satay as like a main attraction and
i just have memories of just loving dipping the skewers into the peanut sauce and it was like a
family shared activity it was just so just something that i remember so well so three
hours later i am finally done skewering um by the way i recommend laying them flat in one layer for
reasons you will find out in a second here's a trick to prevent the skewers from burning
you place down a double layer of foil and that's where the handles of your skewers are gonna rest
right before grilling brush one side of the skewers with coconut milk and then place the
skewers coconut milk side down brush the top with more coconut milk and this is a traditional method
that helps keep the meat moist i grill these on high heat to get nice grill marks and i keep the
lid open because they do not take long at all a couple of minutes per side and you're done
wow look at these they look so good so good better than buying that's for sure now our peanut sauce
i want to serve this in a shallow plate because you want to be able to dip once and get the whole
skewer should you want to so people don't have to double dip now we only have like this hasn't
been enough work we only have one more thing to do which i've done in advance and that is
a quick pickle and it's super easy combine some vinegar
sugar a little bit of salt and just cook that down until the sugar is dissolved let that cool and
pour it over some cucumber chilies and shallots and you don't have to do this ahead of time in
fact we like to keep that fresh so i wouldn't do it more than 10 minutes in advance of serving okay
and last but not least we have our toast so this right here i know it's a lot i know it's
a lot this is why this is street food not really home cooking kind of thing but this is a complete
satay set right there the satay the peanut sauce the dot and the toast once you have
the sauce left over at the end you can use the toast to sop it up let's try it boom that's it
so good
and see the beef comes off gracefully there's no tucking and fighting that's cutting the beef
smoke very important so this is super rich and that's where the attack comes in so what i do
and this is just you know just at home with your family members you use the tip of your skewers
and you take a piece of the cucumber not something you do with at a party with strangers obviously
it goes so well together the satay is aromatic and flavorful and the peanut sauce just adds
texture creaminess sweet salty i mean everything just works so incredibly well together that'll go
good on anything that'll be good on cardboard i tell you so the recipe as always will be on
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thank you as always for watching and i will see you next time for your next delicious thai meal