THAILAND STYLE BBQ SIRLOIN STEAK
This is one of my all-time favorite recipes. It is not authentic Thai (rarely will the Thais prepare a whole chunk of meat like this), but the ingredients and flavorings are authentic.
Steak:
3 lb Sirloin, about 1.5" thick, fat trimmed
Marinade:
1/4 cup fish sauce*
4 1/2 T fresh lime juice
3 serrano chiles
4 scallions, trimmed and cut into 1" pieces
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup cilantro
2 T sugar
1/4 tsp salt
To make marinade:
Put garlic and chiles into running food processor and process until finely minced. Add scallions and cilantro and continue processing until minced. Add lime juice, fish sauce, salt, and sugar and blend. Marinade should be a wet paste.
Place steak in marinade, spreading the green paste over the entire steak for at least overnight (a full 24 hours for better flavor).
Drain steak, reseving marinade. Lightly salt both sides of steak and BBQ over grill to taste. Cut into 1/4" slices, brush with leftover marinade.
This dish goes well with Chinese-style orange chicken or fruit salad.
*Fish sauce is made from fermented fish. It smells bad to some people, but it imparts a delicious flavor to foods. There are different types of fish sauce from various SE Asian coutries. For this dish, please make sure to buy Thai fish sauce, not Vietnamese or fish sauce from the Philippines. My favorite brand is Tiparos, the best quality Thai fish sauce available in the US. While at a San Diego dinner party once, I saw a young lady using Tiparos and I mentioned I liked it the most. She gave me a long lecture on why it was the best (quaility ingredients and care). After dinner, I found out her father owned the company back in Thailand!
Tiparos can be found at most oriental grocers and some general grocery stores and cost about $2.50 for a bottle.