Beef and Lemongrass Skewers - 2 Ways

By andrew.zimmern on Fri, 05/25/2007 - 20:40

Summary

Yield
Prep Time	1 hours
Country	Asia
Main Ingredient	Beef
Meal	Appetizer/Small plate
Season	Summer

Description

Here are two more reasons to break out the grill and get cooking. Use a nice fatty piece of sirloin and try them both. Whichever recipe you choose, you will want to use the peanut sauce, which I use most often when I grill ginger-and-garlic–marinated chicken at home, but I LOVE with the beef skewers. Make lots of sauce—you’ll end up using it on everything, trust me.

(Yield and preparation time are for each recipe, double if preparing both.)

Ingredients

2 lb boneless beef sirloin
1 T coriander seeds
2 T brown sugar
0.25 c fish sauce
FOR BEEF 1:
2 clv peeled and minced garlic
2 stalks lemongrass
FOR BEEF 2:
for every 2lbs of boneless beef sirloin, marinate in--
2 T minced garlic
3 T ground cumin
2 T ground coriander seed
3 T curry powder
3 T brown sugar.
2 T lime juice
2 T fish sauce.
FOR HUNAN PEANUT DIPPING SAUCE:
1 T Peanut Oil
2 clv minced garlic.
2 T tomato paste
0.5 c chicken broth
0.5 tsp sugar
1 T peanut butter
0.25 c hoisin sauce
1 T chile powder
2 t chile paste
1 fresh red chile, seeded and thinly sliced
0.25 c peanuts - crushed*
0.25 c roasted ground peanuts*

Instructions

FOR BEEF 1:
Slice beef into long thin strips, 1/8 inch by 1 inch by 5 inches long.

Weave onto 24 skewers, soaked in water if using bamboo ones. Combine the garlic, lemongrass, coriander, sugar, and fish sauce in a mortar and pestle until mixture is a paste. Use a blender or food processor if you have to. Drizzle over beef and marinate for 30 minutes or up to 8 hours.

Grill to taste over high direct heat and serve, garnishing with the nuts.

FOR BEEF 2:
Remove from marinade and cook in one fashion or another. Skewer and broil. Serve 7–9 skewers mounted onto a pineapple wedge.

FOR HUNAN PEANUT DIPPING SAUCE:
Heat the oil in a small pan and add the garlic, chili paste, and tomato paste. Fry until the garlic turns light brown. Add the broth, peanut butter, hoisin, and sugar. Simmer for 3 minutes. Cool and add the peanuts and chiles.