A satay (or saté) is an Indonesian and Southeast Asian kebab made by threading almost any kind of marinated meat, fish or poultry on skewers and grilled or broiling. It is also very popular in the Netherlands.
Recipes for satay vary from country to country, but it is usually served with spicy peanut sauce, slivered onions and cucumbers, and is often eaten as an appetizer.
What does it mean to mince something?
What does it mean to mince something?
On the scale of cutting things into little pieces, a mince is smaller than a dice, shred or chop, but not quite puréed, pulverized or squashed to a pulp. Things that are typically minced include shallots, garlic, ginger, onion, lemongrass, peppers, herbs, meats, words.
Why mince? Mince when you want to make sure that a powerful flavor is spread evenly throughout a dish. Also, mince if you want to make sure that you won’t bite into a too-big chunk of something potent, like garlic, or something difficult to chew, like ginger or lemongrass.
How to mince? Some cooks are born to mince with a chef’s knife, swiftly and precisely yielding the smallest bits of garlic, onion and herbs. For the clumsy and the lazy, a garlic press will mince several cloves at a time, a grater will work for ginger, and a vegetable chopper or baby Cuisinart will mince vegetables and herbs. A butcher is your best bet for mincing meat.
Caution: Mincemeat does not equal “minced meat.” Aside from contributing a little suet to the cause, the butcher can’t help you make a mincemeat (or mince) pie, which contains minced fruits, nuts and spices. The butcher may, however, send you off with “minced meat,” such as ground beef or pork, for your kibbi or larb.
What is a spice paste good for?
What is a spice paste good for?
You want to add some flavor to a cut of meat. Why use a spice paste over a marinade?
First of all, you need time to marinate, time you may not have unless you've planned things in advance. Because a spice paste clings to the meat and forms a crust when you cook it, you don’t have to give it the waiting time you do a marinade. (You could rub a spice paste on a couple of hours ahead of time, but you don’t have to.)
Once cooked, the pungent, textured crust contrasts the plain, juicy meat. Unlike a marinade, which evenly coats a cut of meat and results in a consistently flavored finished dish, the spice paste comes with surprises: a cluster of ginger here, a nugget of garlic there.
The formula for a spice paste is simple: a few ground spices + puréed aromatics like ginger, garlic, chiles + salt and pepper + just enough oil to hold it together.
Lemongrass has a beautiful lemon-perfume aroma and flavor. It can be a little tricky to cook with since it can be tough and sharp (like the grass that it is).First, remove the tough outer layer from the stalk.You can cut the stalk into sections to add to any dish during cooking, then remove before eating.If you're taking that route, pound it a few times with the back of a knife to release its perfume. You can also split it down the middle lengthwise to release more flavor.If you want the lemongrass to be integrated into the dish for more flavor, slice it as thinly as possible.Then just run your knife across the slices until it's minced.If you mince it fine enough, you can add it later during the cooking process so the lemongrass retains its intense flavor.
