hello this is chef john from food wishes calm with penang pork satay that's right
you've had beef satay and you've had chicken satay but i'm hoping you have
not had pork satay since I really want this recipe to be your first time
alright that's how good this is and by the way I've never been to Penang and
I'm only calling you at this because we're using the ingredients typical to
that area so to be clear I'm not saying they make something like this in Penang
but I am saying that they could so with that let's go ahead and get started by
prepping some tumeric which we usually use in this beautiful golden powdered
form but I actually found a piece of the fresh root so this time I thought I'd
use that instead and I'm not sure if we actually have to peel this for a
marinade but if we do the easiest way is just to scrape it with a spoon which I'm
doing in a paper towel here to avoid staining my hands too bad although a
little staining is fine because when people ask us what it's from we can tell
them about this recipe but anyway once we have that skin scraped off we can go
ahead and give this a quick slice before transferring it into our food processor
and of course if you can't find the fresh route we will just use the powder
it's gonna work fine and I'll give you the measurements and by the way that
spoon scraping trick also works great for ginger which we will also add some
of but a spoon will not work on the shallots which we will have to peel and
slice with a knife and toss those in as well along with a whole bunch of peeled
garlic followed by some brown sugar or palm sugar if you have it but you don't
and then we will spice this up with some kind of ground chili powder and I went
with ancho but anything will work we will also toss in some ground
coriander which fun fact is actually from the seeds of the cilantro plant
we'll also toss in a little bit of chipotle plus of course a little kiss of
cayenne and then as far as our liquids go we'll do a little bit of rice vinegar
as well as some nice soy sauce and by nice I mean not low-sodium
we will also sneak in a little bit Asian fish sauce or as it's called in Asia
fish sauce and then our one semi exotic ingredient some tamarind paste which is
basically from a tropical bean like pod which is sort of sweet but intensely
sour so a little bit goes a long way and
that's it we will finish up with a handful of cilantro at which point we'll
take this and process it or blend it until we have a fairly fine ground paste
like this and that's it as soon as that's accomplished all we need is some
chunks of pork to mix this with today I'm gonna be using a big beautiful piece
of fatty pork shoulder also known for some reason is pork butt which i think
has something to do with it once being stored in barrels but anyway we'll go
ahead and cut this up and for this I generally don't trim off too much fat
but if you do see a large solid piece you go ahead and whack it off and as
long as you're fairly consistent you can cut this into whatever size pieces you
want okay because we want him to cook it roughly the same rate and personally I
shoe for something about an inch and a half square or as close as I can get it
so I went ahead and cubed up just over two and a half pounds as shown trimming
off some but not much of the fat and then once that set we can transfer it
into a large mixing bowl and we will sprinkle over a generous amount of salt
which as I like to mention because I'm using a large crystal kosher salt always
looks like way more than it is so please save your cards and letters and then
what we'll do is go ahead and pour in our marinade and then get in there with
to clean paws and then mix and massage this until it's perfectly coated and
then what we'll do once we're sure this is very very well mixed just go ahead
and cover the top with plastic and then transfer it into the fridge for anywhere
between four and eighteen hours and if you're keeping score at home this time I
did mine for about five and that's it once our pork has experienced the
sensation of that marination we'll go ahead and pull it out and impel it on
some kind of skewers either bamboo ones we've soaked in water or some metal ones
like I'm using which is probably a little easier I'll be a less authentic
way to go and there's really only two things you have to remember as you're
doing this the first is we want the pieces of meat touching but we don't
want impressed and squish too tight together and then the second more
important thing is do not stab your hand doing this so we will go ahead and skew
our meat at which point we are ready to grab some tongs and head to the grill
before we do one quick reminder not to throw away the excess marinade because
if we want we can go ahead and brush some of this on while our meats grilling
which by the way is perfectly safe as long as the meat gets cooked after the
application all right so don't brush this stuff on the meat after it's cooked
that is a lawsuit waiting to happen but anyway let's go ahead and head
outside and place these down over some beautifully hot smoky coals and once we
have those place down we're gonna cook them for about 10 minutes per side or
until cooked through and as usual the time I'm giving you is a total guess all
right so don't go buy time since your pieces of meat might be bigger or
smaller or your fire is hotter or not as hot as mine and a good rule of thumb for
this is do it until the meat just firms up or if it feels kind of soft and
springy let it go but once it just starts to feel firm it's probably done
and as I mentioned after we turn it if you want to brush it with some of that
excess marinade go ahead that's never a bad idea plus if you have a bunch of
people standing around your grill watching you this is never not a great
look and there's a pretty good chance you're gonna end up getting tagged on
Instagram but anyway to recap we will cook that for approximately 10 minutes
per side or until we're sure it's cooked through at which point we'll go ahead
and pull it off and head back inside we're happily we do not have to let it
rest which really has great news because this stuff just looks and smells
insanely good and you're gonna want to tuck into that as soon as possible which
I'm going to do right now off the plate and that my friends is one of the most
delicious pieces of pork you will ever taste in your life and I really could
have just stood there eating the rest but I went ahead and plated some objects
to some cucumber salad and peanut sauce so I could take some pictures to use
this clickbait and then I continued on eating and thoroughly enjoying I mean
this stuff just has all the flavors all right sweet sour spicy aromatic smoky
and intensely savory and not to brag but over the years we've done many gorgeous
and very delicious grilled pork dishes but I really can't remember any of them
being as delicious as this one oh and I should mention this would have been more
authentic if we had added a little splash of coconut milk to the marinade
but I didn't one time and I loved it just as much
so truth be told I didn't want to open up a whole can just use a little splash
but having said that suit yourself I mean you are after all the Marvin Gaye
of your Penang pork satay and I've actually heard through the grapevine
that the coconut milk can help tenderize this even further although this really
was beautifully tender as is and yes of course if you want to make this more of
a meal or you do one of those new trendy high carb diets this is absolutely
fantastic on rice and by the way if you do use pork shoulder there's certain
parts of the muscle that are gonna stay pink even when it's cooked through which
I think the piece I just cut into is so don't let that throw you it's fine oh
and you know how sometimes I'll say the salad is just a prop for these videos
this time it is not go find one of our cucumber salad recipes and make it with
this and same for the peanut sauce but anyway that's it what I'm calling penang
pork satay if you're looking for something new and exciting for the grill
this one checks all the boxes it's easy beautiful intensely delicious and has a
very catchy name so for all those reasons and more I really do hope you
give it a try soon so head over to food which is calm for all the ingredient
amounts of more info as usual and as always enjoy
you