It’s not easy prepping small servings of food like this. There was a time a few years ago, before COVID and quarantine, when it was my ambition to create a huge archive of Spanish tapas-style cocktail food. I must have done a dozen dishes when I realized that was my limit. Stir frying and stewing are easier.

So, this is mini-sized beef satay. The meat is seasoned Vietnamese-style while the peanut dipping sauce is definitely Thai.

About the grill. No, you don’t need a huge outdoor grill. These beef skewers were cooked on a stovetop cast iron grill. In July of 2017. Younger daughter, Alex, was in culinary school and she was starting to collect good quality kitchen equipment. The Lodge reversible grill / griddle was one of them.

So, stovetop grill. Brushed lightly with oil (optional if the cast iron grill is kept regularly seasoned) and heated until smoke was visibly floating up from the surface. Grilling time was ultra short — just a minute per side. Cooking the peanut dipping sauce takes longer than the actual grilling.

Cocktail beef sate (satay)

Connie Veneracion

Transform an ubiquitous Asian street food into a posh appetizer! Use small bamboo skewers to thread thinly sliced fatty beef and grill on both sides just until lightly charred. Beef cut this thinly doesn't really take long to cook, after all.

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 10

Total Time 30

Course Appetizer, Snack

Cuisine Asian

Servings 12 skewers

Ingredients

12 strips fatty beef (sold as yakiniku-cut beef, the strips are the size of bacon rashers)
12 bamboo cocktail skewers

Marinade

2 bird’s eye chilies finely chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon sugar

Peanut dipping sauce

4 tablespoons unsweetened smooth peanut butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
juice of lime half
1 shallot peeled and finely chopped
1 half-inch knob ginger peeled and grated
1 pinch chili flakes (optional)
salt to taste

Instructions

Thread one strip of beef with one skewer. Repeat until all the beef and skewers have been used. Arrange the skewered beef in a single layer in a container.
Mix together all the ingredients for the marinade. Brush on the beef. Turn the skewered beef over and brush on the opposite side. Cover the container and leave the meat to marinate. With such thin slices of beef, it doesn’t take long for them to soak up the flavors in the marinade.
In a small saucepan, mix all the ingredients for the sauce with about 1/4 cup of hot water. Bring to the boil. Simmer gently for a minute, stirring to make sure the peanut butter does not settle to the bottom of the pan. Turn off the heat and leave to infuse.
Heat your grill. Grill the beef over high heat for about a minute per side.
Arrange the beef satay on a plate with dipping sauce on the side.