On a barbecue blog I found a recipe for Korean Satay Sauce. It’s a dipping sauce combining marinade for the popular Korean grilled beef dish 갈비 kalbi, peanut butter and water.
Satay is a favorite marinated skewered meat dish of Southeast Asia, and it’s usually paired with a peanut sauce.
“Korean Satay Sauce” is a curious recipe name, because a sauce Koreans commonly use with meat is 쌈장 ssamjang. The word literally means a jang, or sauce, for ssam, or meat wrapped in a sauce-slathered leaf of lettuce or 깻닢 kkaenip (perilla). A common ssamjang is a greatest-hits sauce with 된장doenjang (fermented soybean paste), 고추장 gochujang (spicy red pepper sauce), sesame oil, onion, garlic and green onions.
Peanut Ssamjang is a sanitary, economical and delicious way to use up the rest of your 갈비 kalbi or 불고기 bulgogi marinade (such as Korean drama superstar Bae Yong Joon’s) flavoring the raw meat. It’s a shame to put all the work on the marinade from scratch and then dumping most of it down the drain because it’s been in contact with raw beef.
