On Superbowl Sunday, Carlton was invited to a Superbowl party at a coworker's house, and I was invited to come along with him. We showed up just in time for Geoff (party host) to start throwing tons of meat on the grill - beef ribs in marinade, beef ribs in bbq sauce, pork ribs in bbq sauce, bone-in chicken breasts in bbq sauce, and some kabobs... your choice of steak or chicken with bell peppers, onion, and zucchini mixed in. On top of all the meats, there was a gigantic self-serve salad, a 7-layer bean/guac/sour cream/salsa/cheese/etc dip, and another fruit salsa with plenty of chips for scooping. Annnnnnnd, margaritas, of course! Drinker's choice of original flavor or frozen strawberry. Of course, the frozen strawberry margaritas were a hit with me, as with the 5-ish geeky computer programmers and QA analysts.
Geoff and his wife are originally from California, lived in Boston for a few years, and are now currently in Arizona, about 45 minutes from us. Their roots, however, are in the Polynesian Islands. And I must say, Geoff's marinated ribs and kabobs were definitely a hit! No matter how much any of his guests raved about his marinade, he wouldn't give up the recipe... smart man! I finally got a few ingredients out of him, and he admitted to pineapple juice, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and a few other "choice ingredients." Needless to say, I just had to try and recreate this marinade tonight for the kabobs I grilled! Oh, those Polynesians!
So. Our grocery store didn't have just a plain pineapple juice. Can you believe that? I know, huh! I did find a pineapple + coconut juice and figured that would work well enough. And instead of buying soy sauce, ginger, and other "choice ingredients," I just went for good ole, reliable Dale's. Dale's already has all those ingredients anyway. I know, I'm smart like that.
Here's what you'll need:
bamboo skewers, soaked in water for at least 15-20 minutes
1/8 cup pineapple + coconut juice
1/8 cup Dale's marinade
1/4 cup water (my pineapple + coconut juice was pretty syrup-y so this was necessary)
2 cloves chopped garlic
3 bell peppers - 1 red, 1 yellow, 1 green
1 sweet onion
fresh whole mushrooms
2 zucchini
2 small ribeye steaks, or your choice cut of steak (our grocer had ribeyes on sale and I got 2 small steaks weighing 1.25 pounds total for 7.25!)
I whisked the juice, Dale's, water, and chopped garlic together in a glass pie dish - I like to marinade in these dishes. Cut steaks into cubes about 2" square-ish, and the onion and bell peppers the same. Dump meat and veggies into the dish with marinade, cover with plastic wrap and let sit in fridge for as long as you can wait. (Ours only got to marinade for about 30 minutes before the grill got started because somebody got hungry.... I would recommend marinading longer than that if you can help yourself!) I didn't put any mushrooms in the marinade until I started putting other things on the skewers because they tend to soak up anything and everything around them very quickly. So right before you start sticking things on the skewers, dump your mushrooms into the marinade. I also prefer my zucchini cut into quarters and cooked lightly over the hot flame, so I kept them cut large and just sat them directly onto the grill instead of skewering them.
Get the skewer out of the sink/soaking dish and stab on a few of each chopped ingredient - steak, peppers, onion, mushrooms, repeat until the skewer is full, with about 2-3" on each end. Grill them all until you've got the beef as cooked as you prefer! We like medium-cooked steaks, so they stayed on the grill for about 8 minutes, I turned them once, and they cooked again for about 4 minutes.
My marinade was still not close to Geoff's, but it was closer than I was expecting! I guess nobody can cook like a Polynesian except a Polynesian.
I also chopped up a few red potatoes, tossed them in plenty of e.v. olive oil, a salt/pepper/herb mixture, and topped them very generously with about a hole brick of freshly-grated parmasan cheese. Wrapped them up in tin foil, popped them in a 425 degree oven for about 45 minutes, and they're done. Since I severely underestimated how long they would take to cook compared to the already-grilling skewers, I popped them in the microwave for 6 minutes after they had baked for about 15 minutes and they were perfect, except that they didn't get to crispen up at all... :(
Along with some totally-not-healthy-at-all cheesy breadsticks we had in the freezer, this made for a huge, delicious, very satisfying meal... with leftovers.
Okay, now back to Little Miss Desert Rose!
looks great. I'm glad you guys had a good time.
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