A couple of years ago, Scott bought me David Thompson’s Thai Street Food for Christmas. I’ve been eyeing the grilled pork skewers for awhile, and decided to make them the other day when I had some leftover coriander roots.
It’s supposed to make enough for 4-5 people. Maybe it’s enough for 4-5 Thai people, but James and I polished it off between the two of us.
I normally find pork to be bland, but the marinade for this is awesome. It’s simple (and easy to throw together) but quite smoky and if I bought this in Thailand I would not be disappointed. I didn’t use a charcoal grill like the book recommended, but I thought the Weber did fine.
I served it on a bed of bok choy and grilled eggplant.
Ingredients
- 300g pork loin or neck
- 1 tsp cleaned and chopped coriander roots
- pinch of salt
- 1 tsp chopped garlic
- 1/2 tsp ground white pepper
- 2 TBSP shaved palm sugar
- dash of dark soy sauce
- 2 TBSP fish sauce
- 2 TBSP vegetable oil
Method
- Slice the pork into thinnish pieces about 2cm square.
- Using a pestle and mortar pound the coriander root, salt, garlic and pepper into a fine paste. Combine with the sugar, soy sauce, fish sauce and oil. Marinate the pork in this mixture for about 3 hours.
- David Thompson’s recipe has you grilling it over charcoal, but I just grilled for a couple of minutes each side over gas.
Very Rough Nutritional Guide:
1 serve: 389 calories, 47% fat, 36% protein, 17% carbs
No way 300g of meat feeds 4 people unless it was supposed to be an entree/side?
David Thompson must be an anorexic midget.
Hi,
Just thought I’d pipe in here with my 2 cents. I make these all the time and believe i’ve got them down. If you’re only cooking them for a few minutes either side then it’s not enough. the heat needs to be kind of low so that the palm sugar fully caramelises and you get to baste the skewers multiple times with coconut cream.
Just FYI too BBQ coals are essential as the coconut cream hits them and then the huge plume of coconut smoke ‘smokes’ the pork also.
Thinner rectangular pieces of pork rather than cubes is also essential as the surface area of the pork then contains more caramel and coconut cream.
Try the recipe again with a slow cook and at least 6 turns of the skewers which means 6 heavy bastes of the coconut cream. It’ll look a lot richer and darker all over than the image above.
Hope I’m not coming across as a know it all but the difference between a slow cook and a fast cook is miles apart.
I suspect it was partially the fast cooking and partially my poor photography skills. =) But your description of the slow cooking had me drooling so I will definitely try that next time. Thanks so much for the advice! =)