The January 2010 DC challenge was hosted by Cuppy (http://the daringkitchen.com/users/cuppy) of Cuppylicious (http://recipes.cuppylicious.net) and she chose a delicious Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the book 1000 Recipes by Martha Day.
I love Thai food, especially the tart and hot flavors. This pork satay is pretty straightforward. Cut the pork into strips, marinate for several hours, grill and chow down! I modified the marinade a bit (as the host indicated we could) by adding some fish sauce, which I always think of as essential in Thai cooking, and some chiles to heat it up a bit. I would have also used lime rather than the lemon the marinade called for because I think of lime when I think Thai, but my limes were a little tired. Darn that Costco for not having them the last time Bob stopped!
The dipping sauce I used was a mango-citrus sauce, which played off the Thai flavors nicely. We often use peanut sauce for Thai, but this was a little lighter.
Traditionally, I think satays are on skewers and the host suggested that but allowed us to skip them if we wanted. I personally think skewers are a nuisance, both to cook with and to eat from, so I just grilled the strips on a stovetop grill pan and called it good.
A little char on the pork. It took maybe 5-10 minutes tops to cook these. I think I would use pork tenderloin if I were to do it again - less fat than shoulder and much easier to cut into strips without having to trim. I would also skip the tumeric which adds little but color and I don't think the satay needs the yellow.
The final plate! Notice the healthy assortment of veggies accompanying the satay. This is part of our 2010 resolution to eat "meat-light" and increase the vegetable and salad part of our plate. Did you know some nutritionists suggest your shopping cart at the grocery store should be 50% fruit and vegetables? Something to strive for. I would have loved to have some rice with this, but another part of our resolution is "starch-light," so rice is a special treat, even if it is brown.
And so another year of Daring begins!
These look fantastic! Meat and starch light sound like a nice fresh start to the year =D.
ReplyDeleteWe struggle to get enough fruits and veggies in our diet at our house too. I like your idea of pork tenderloin satay. I'll have to give it a try! The mango sauce sounds delicious. Great job on this challenge!
ReplyDeleteThose resolutions would be really difficult in my house; I still have 40 pounds of rice my Halloween run to Costco... *sigh*
ReplyDeleteThose vegies are very colorful, though, and really liven up the plate. What a great table setting. :) Do you have this mango dipping sauce as a recipe somewhere?
That last photo is so colourful and just bursts out of the screen well done. And I agree with your tweaks and the mnago dipping sauce sounds so delicious that is a good addition. Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia.
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