January 18, 2007
Beef Satay With Prima Taste Satay Premix
I have been cheating and not cooking everything from raw ingredients because:
1) It’s quite tedious to make sauces and gravy from scratch (excuse)
2) Too many plates and utensils to wash after that (lazy)
3) I don’t have the proper kitchen utensils like Mortar and Pestle (Ikea is quite far), KitchenAid Mixer / Blender (expensive)
4) I don’t know how to (truth).
But I am no doubt learning more each day, especially from all the experienced cooks out there in blogosphere who have posted so many recipes of food I am familiar with and I would love to try them out.
This beef satay was done with the help of the Prima Taste Satay Premix. Satay is somewhat like a meat kebab, Asian style. My favorite Satay stall in Singapore is FatMan Satay in Lau Pa Sat. The beef is juicy and tender, the gravy is spicy and full of peanuts pieces. The difference between grilling satay over a charcoal grill versus grilling them over a stovetop is great. The charcoal taste and smell is just something that you cannot get over a stovetop.
The Prima Taste Satay Premix comes with
- 1 packet of Satay Prima Marinate,
- 1 packet of Satay Prima Basting Oil and
- 1 packet of Satay Prima Sauce.
The Satay Prima Sauce tasted a bit wimpy. It was a bit sour and did not have any chunky peanut bits. Hence I went with the Spicy Satay Sauce, Glory brand, as recommended by Tigerfish.
Ingredients (Makes 18 sticks of satay, Serves 3):
- 1 lb Top Sirloin Steak
- Prima Taste Satay Premix
- Glory brand Spicy Satay Sauce
A. Preparation of Satay meat:
1. Cut beef into thin slices. (Tip: If you find the sirloin steak too difficult to slice, put it into the freezer for about half and hour for it to harden a little.)
2. Mix cut beef with Satay Prima Marinate. Leave in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.
3. Thread meat on satay sticks or skewers. (Note: My skewers were a bit long, so my satay “thread” is longer than usual. The recommended amount of meat to use for the Premix was 310g, which is about 0.7lb or 104 oz. This means I actually had too much meat for the Premix.)
B. To cook Satay meat:
1. Brush Satay meat with Satay Prima Basting Oil. (Prima Taste recommends using a stalk of lemon grass to brush satay meat. Simply use a knife to divide the end of the stalk into sections to turn it into a brush.)
2. Grill Satay meat until cooked. (My Ikea grill pan was the only pan big enough to hold the full length of my skewers without needing to cut the skewers.)
C: To cook Satay Gravy:
1. Pour Satay Prima Sauce into a pot and heat for 1 min on medium heat.
2. To keep warm, leave on low heat.
If using Glory brand Spicy Satay Sauce, scoop as much Sauce as you want into a microwavable bowl and heat in microwave.
D. To serve:
1. Cut cucumber, red onions and ketupat (compressed rice).
2. Serve Satay with gravy.
Cooking Notes:
1. The beef sirloin steak meat was a bit too lean. Satay always taste best with some fats cos the flavor is in the fats. If possible, buy beef that has 20% fats.
2. If grilling Satay to be eaten later, use a convection oven to heat up, rather than a microwave oven. There is something about microwaves which makes the meat chewy. J said the Satay tasted a bit chewy after microwaving, but when I had leftovers for lunch the next day, I removed the beef off the skewers, poured some Glory Spicy Satay Sauce over the meat and heated it at 450 degreeF in a convection oven. It tasted great! That could also be because there was some oil on the Satay Sauce.
3. For indoor cooking, best to use a grill pan, and not broil the satay in an oven, as I had done for my first Satay attempt. It’s important to have some burnt bits on the Satay. Those are the yummy bits.
Bite This!
More recipes:
Prima Taste Premixes - For The Homesick Singaporean
The Rapper Cook’s Preview Into Her 2007 Menu
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January 18th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
What? You don’t know everything about cooking?
January 18th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Shh…
January 18th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
LOL. I am lazy like that sometimes too, but don’t forget that you are one of those experienced cook. ;)
January 18th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
you love prima! :) hehe do like asian stores sell prima mix? i could try to search for it. :D
January 18th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
you are not lazy liao. i am worse. at least you try to cook. i will ask pple to tapow food for me. only boh pian, pple coming for makam then i cook. haha…
btw, i am sometimes very straight forward, forgive me. satay is to have only 3 pieces of meat. read it in hokkien and it will *bling - oh i see*. it reads 3 pieces. usually 2 bigger pieces of tender meat and 1 piece of fat. but i will skip the fat meat. :-O this version looks so so so much better than your first attempt. it looks very delicious!!
for lao pa sat satay, i prefer i think stall 6 or 7, the old lady’s instead of fatman. fatman’s very mincey satay. i like whole pieces of meat :-)
there’s this satay shop in Bt Timah Food Centre, they put a tablespoon of blendered pineapple in the satay sauce, gives it an extra ummph.. maybe if you have leftover sauce, and bored with same stuff, u can try it :-)
January 19th, 2007 at 12:01 am
How did you like the sauce ? Hope it was better than the ones you hv used previously…if not need to *piak piak* myself…
This looks very good…seems juicy…yum yum
January 19th, 2007 at 8:46 am
Hi Sue, I am still learning…
BuddingCook - Ranch 99 only started selling this recently. I am not sure about the Asian supermarkets in your area. You can buy them online (hcfoods.net), but with shipping charges, it may not be worth paying for it.
Keropok - *Bling - oh i see* It didn’t occur to me that ’satay’ is a Hokkien word. I thought it was a Malay word. I will see if Old Woman satay stall is more crowded than Fat Man satay stall then decide which one to eat.
Tiga! The Glory Spicy Satay Sauce was very nice cos of the peanut bits. No need to spank yourself :) It was a good recommendation, just like the Glory Sambal Belacan and the Glory Kaya. (Yes I bought the Kaya too!)
January 19th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Sim, I salute you, I’m so lazy to make those skewers :( I Wahh, good thing you use longer bamboo skewers, don’t have to make too many hehe :) I usually cut the meat thicker, to lock the juices in, but if used thin cut meats like yours, have to constantly braise them with the extra marination sauce while grilling or cooking to keep the moisture after browning.
January 20th, 2007 at 8:15 am
Pai sei la… chef salute newbie *blush*
I ran out of basting oil cos I had too much meat! Hence the meat looked a bit dry.
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:48 am
Oh, if u ran out of basting oil, this is what I do. I use the mallet and tenderize the meat before I marinate them. It’ll b juicy and tender. IF you don’t have a mallet, you can mix some baking soda to tenderize the meat (restaurant style).