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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

How to Skewer

A Filipino party, especially during warm weather, is not complete without the barbecue. And I'm not talking about the marinated chicken/pork/beef you're used to seeing. I'm talking about tiny pieces of marinated chicken/pork/beef speared onto a bamboo skewer. You get a range of awesome on that one serving- the crispy, charred bits... the sweetness from the marinade... and the tenderness of the meat.


To start, you have to choose your meat. I'm used to seeing pork and beef being used, but if you're not into "meat meat," chicken works just as well. Cut them up into bite size pieces and throw them into a big bowl as they wait for the marinade.

The marinade can be anything you want, but for a Filipino marinade, it must have the three components: salt, sweet, sour. Traditionally, soy sauce represents the salty; lemon lime soda or sugar represents the sweet; and lemon juice covers the sour.

This is what went into the marinade for this occasion:

  • Soy sauce
  • 7Up
  • Lemon Juice
  • Red Wine
  • Garlic
  • Onion
  • Sesame seed oil
  • Cracked black peppercorns
  • Pineapple juice

There was no measuring involved, but the resulting marinade covered about half of the beef. Cover with cling and keep in the fridge until you're ready to cook. Ideally, you want to do this the day before, so that the meat will become tender and it can turn into the tasty.


Okay, the day of grilling is here... what to do? Well... you need to soak the bamboo skewers, for starters. If you're curious why, it's because wet skewers don't burn as fast as dry ones. If you didn't know, don't worry... I didn't either.

If that's too much work for you, there's always the metal skewers. I've never used those before, so I can't tell you how that would go. I'm just old fashioned like that.


While your grill is heating up, you can start on the meat spearing. How much you want per stick is up to you- some prefer putting as much as they can on there, but keep in mind you're going to need enough at the bottom so you can hold it to eat. I think for this batch I put about 5 pieces per stick.


And here they are... in the skewered glory. I didn't get any shots of them cooked, but you can imagine how tasty they were.

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