With the hot weather we’ve had here (up until today), I tried to come up with a new marinade for our steak skewers. One that is loosely based on the well-known Vietnamese lemongrass marinade that I love so much.

The authentic recipe is very basic and straightforward, not to mention high on garlic. I wanted to tone the garlic down and put a little spring into it, and some heat. Turned out really good.

From all the recipes I created for the BBQ we had last saturday, the ones I used this marinade on were the first ones to go. It has a wonderful citrusy flavor that is cool and refreshing and perfect for everything from poultry to steak to vegetables.

Ingredients:

1 stalk lemongrass
thumb-size piece fresh ginger
1 garlic clove
2 tbsp oil
1 small shallot
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
4 jalapeño slices
1 tbsp fish sauce
4 tbsp water
2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin

Directions:

* this will make enough marinade for 2 normal steaks, but you can easily double or triple the quantities.

 
Peel the ginger en coarsely chop it. I’ll be using my immersion blender later on, you can also finely chop everything if you want to skip that step.

Slap the lemongrass on your countertop to release some of the oils, and chop it along with the garlic and shallot.

Just a few jalapeño slices (I used the seeds as well). Heat the oil and stir-fry everything for 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the pepper and give it another minute before pouring in 2 tbsp water and sprinkling in the sugar.

Stir and simmer until the sugar turns light beige.

That’s your cue to pour in the remaining water, light soy sauce, fish sauce and mirin.

 
Simmer for an extra minute.
 

I then used my immersion blender but you can use a regular blender or food processor as well. Let the marinade cool off.

 
That’s it. You can use this marinade on pretty much anything you can think of… and then some. I used mine on steak skewers. Sliced the steaks in 1/2 inch slices and thread them onto skewers.
 

Marinated them for about two hours in my fridge and scraped off the excess ingredients before grilling them 2 minutes over direct heat on each side. (Big green egg 400F – 200C).

Steak this simple never tasted so good!