I was wandering around in Bali and saw this satay seller. It looked so tasty! After trying it I wanted to make it myself. Just a slightly different version: The Indonesian beef satay, with Balinese spices. So you could also say this homemade street food is particular to the taste of Bali.
Did you ever try the street food in Bali? Well now is a good time to even make it home. Give yourself and those around you a taste of Bali! You would need a barbecue or grill to make it. You can also grill it in a pan.
The ingredients to make Balinese beef satay
- 4 garlic cloves
- 7 small red onions
- 2 large chilies
- 2 small chilies
- 1 cm galangal
- 1 cm ginger
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp coriander
- 3 lime leaves
- 1 tsp brown sugar
- 250 gr beef steak
- cooking oil
Galangal is also often used in Nasi Goreng and is a typical ingredient used in the Indonesian cuisine. If you have a challenge finding this item you could try a supermarket with import products from Asia. If you can’t find it at all, you can replace this with ginger and squeeze a few drops of lemon on it. Perhaps about 1/4 lemon should do. The rest of the ingredients should be easy to obtain in most supermarkets.
Making the beef marination sauce
To get that vacation street food taste, we’ll be making the marination sauce from the beginning. This gives you a more authentic taste of the Indonesian beef satay.
For this part we will use a mortar and pestle. A stone grinder, if you dont have this, a blender can do it as well. But try to avoid using the blender because we’re not making a juice.
Add the garlic, red onions, cilies, galangal, ginger, salt, sugar and coriander on the grinder. To make the grind process easier, you can make small chunks of the garlic, onion and chilies. This will make the grinding process faster.
From the list of ingredients we still have the lime leaves and brown sugar. This is not added to this paste-like outcome yet. But we will start with cutting the lemon leaves. The purpose is to give a hint of lemon aroma to it. It’s not just going to taste super delicious, but smell great too!
Finishing the Balinese marinating sauce
The ground paste we just made is going to be fried. Pre-heat the oil and add the paste. stir it around a bit so the oil can get in-between everything. Frying chilies indoor might sting your eyes or make you cough. Make sure to ventilate the area well.
While stirring add the brown sugar, soy sauce and lime leaves. Let this simmer on low fire for 1 minute. Let the marinating sauce cool off in a bowl. In the mean time we’ll cut the beef.
Indonesian beef
This is just one of the cheaper cuts of the beef. We don’t require some fancy steak to make it! so keep the cost low, and make sure your beef steak is still good for cooking. Cut the steak in small cubes because we will want to skewer the cubes later.
Add the cut beef steak to the bowl with the marinating sauce. Stir it well so everything is covered and can absorb the sauce. Now we should also give it time to let it rest for half a day at least. This makes sure your taste is optimum to what you are going to buy on the streets of Bali.
This is how it looks like the next day. It’s ready to get skewered, so grab your satay sticks and start adding the cubes. Look how taste it already looks. Now grill it on a barbecue. It might take some time to turn on the barbecue so you might want to start activating your charcoals. If you use a gas grill, I know it’s healthier and better. But grilling on charcoal brings extra flavours to your Indonesian beef satay. Just turn them regular and avoid that it becomes burnt.
During the grilling we’re brushing some garlic infused oil. You can just normal cooking oil, it doesn’t need to be infused. Just optional since most of the taste comes from the marinating sauce we made.
Two minutes before it’s finished, top it off with some soy sauce. Now you got some amazing Indonesian beef satay made at home.
It’s a fairly easy recipe, you just need some time and patience with the marination pocess. For the grilling you would need to make sure not to burn the satay. Good luck in making these.
The Indonesian beef satay recipe summary
Indonesian beef satay recipe
Equipment
- 1 pestle & mortar
- 1 Barbecue
Ingredients
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 7 red small onions
- 2 large chilies
- 2 small chilies
- 1 cm galangal
- 1 cm ginger
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp coriander
- 3 lime leaves optional
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1 tsp brown sugar
- 250 gr beef steak
Instructions
- Grind the following ingredients to a paste: garlic, red onions, chilies, galangal, ginger, sugar and coriander
- Fry the paste in hot oil. Add pepper, brown sugar and the lime leaves. The lime leaves should be cut into small pieces. Fry it for several minutes and let it cool off.
- Cut the beef steak in cubes. and add them to the paste. Make sure the paste is cooled off.
- Mix the paste with the beef steak well so everything is covered
- Refridgerate the meat for half a day
- Light up the barbecue
- Skewer the meat while the barbecue is getting ready
- when everything is finished start grilling the meat on the barbecue
- While you turn the skewered meat regulary, brush the Indonesian beef skewers with cooking oil. Add soy sauce, 2 minutes before you are done grilling
- You are now done with making Indonesian Beef satay. Enjoy it like that, or like us locals, add rice and eat.
