A Daring New Year
This year, despite a heavy course and work load (and the kind prodding from friends to post more often), I decided to challenge myself by joining the Daring Kitchen; I am now both a Daring Cook as well as a Daring Baker. What exactly are these designations? Simply put, in 2006, two bloggers challenged each other to bake homemade pretzels separately but using the same recipe. They patted each other on the back congratulating their success in their first challenge and proposed several more challenges over the coming months. The idea, their “little baking group”, began to spread until it became the official Daring Bakers. Each month, one of the daring bakers (and now cooks) choose a recipe for the Daring Baker/Cook community to follow and then on a specified reveal date, post their success on their blogs.
When you see this icon with one of my posts,
it will be referring to a challenge post.
This brings me to today.
The first challenge I participated in was hosted by “Cuppy” of Cuppylicious who chose a Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the cookbook 1000 Recipes by Maratha Day.
One thing I enjoy about these challenges is that they can easily fit into both our budget and our schedules. While some are bound to be more time intensive, for me nothing is as relaxing as following a recipe (exactly as written) and anticipating its outcome. Robb and I both agree, this first challenge recipe will probably be a “keeper” in our recipe collection. The following is the recipe as well as my notes and photographs. Bon appétit!
Chicken Pork Satay with Peanut Sauce
Satay Marinade
Ingredients
1/2 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 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 T fish sauce
1 dragon chili I substituted sriracha sauce as I fogot to buy the chili!
1 pound of chicken breast pork (loin or shoulder cuts) (16 oz or 450g)
Method
If you have a food processor or blender, dump in everything except the pork and blend until smooth.
Cut chicken pork into 1 inch strips.
Cover chicken 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. For chicken marinade 4 — 12 hours.
If using wooden or bamboo skewers, soak your skewers in warm water for at least 20 minutes before preparing skewers.
Gently and slowly slide meat strips onto skewers. Discard leftover marinade. (If you’re grilling or broiling, you could definitely brush once with extra marinade when you flip the skewers.)
Broil or grill at 290°C/550° F (or pan fry on medium-high) for 5 — 7 minutes or until the edges just start to char. Flip and cook another 5 — 7 minutes.
Accompanying sauces
While your meat is marinading, you can eaisly prep the sauce(s). The required sauce was the peanut one, but since I like multiple options I decided to do each of the three sauces.
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)Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl. Add soy sauce and lemon, mix well.
Over low heat, combine coconut milk, peanut butter and your soy-lemon-seasoning mix. Mix well, stir often.
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.
Pepper Dip
4 Tbsp soy sauce (2 oz or 60 mls)
1 Tbsp lemon juice (0.5 oz or 15 mls)
1 tsp brown sugar (5 mls)
1-2 dried red chilies, chopped (keep the seeds for heat)
1 finely chopped green onion (scallion)Mix well. Serve chilled or room temperature.
Tamarind Dip
Ah, but here is where we met the only challenge of the day. I went to Woodman’s on New Years Day with the intentions of procuring all of the ingredients for the challgene. I was still very sleepy from our trip to Milwaukee and either I could not find the tamarind paste in the humungous Asian-food section because my eyelids were attempting to sabotage my shopping trip or it was seriously not there. Unwilling to give up, I discovered (thanks to the handy iPhone) that I could indeed make my own tamarind paste. It is apparently quite simply if you can find the tamrind pods. Lo and behold, I had spied some of these beauties in the produce section while procuring my dried chillies. After some research I discovered that the pods needed to be soaked in water for about an hour and then the seeds (pea-sized little “rocks”) could be removed and what remained (the pulp) could put processed in a food mill. This is what I produced:
Not bad!
4 Tbsp tamarind paste (2 oz or 60 mls)
1 Tbsp soy sauce (0.5 oz or 15 mls)
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 finely chopped green onion (scallion)
1 tsp brown or white sugar, or to taste (about 5 mls)Mix well. Serve chilled or room temperature.
All in all, I should say this challenge was a delicious success!
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