Chicken Satay

This month "Flavours of.." is hosted by Hrishi and devoted to Indonesia, a land and peoples which stole a little bit of my heart 20 years ago. Since Indonesia is made of  6 000 populated islands, the cuisine is as varied as varied can be. But it might be fair to say that Satay is the Fish and Chips, the Indonesian Steak - Frites in short the national dish.

Satay can be street-food or sophisticated food. Satay is a snack or a dish. It is grilled/BBQ cubes of chicken, beef, mutton, fish, prawn, crocodile, snack, tofu to name but a few but not all at once, served on a skewer with a sauce.

The sauce is  referred to as Satay. It could be any sauce however with time, Satay has been served mostly with peanut sauce and the word self is used for that very sauce. A perfect peanut sauce has this lovely rich yellow due to the main spice: turmeric. Then it should be not too runny, nor too thick and spicy enough.

Before I leave you with the recipe, I want to add that I took this picture at Malaysia Kitchen Festival and that the blogger event "Flavours of" is the brainchild of Nayna Kanabar of Simply Food.

Now for the up-market recipe as prepared by Awana if you fancy a quick version try that of Auntie beeb

Chicken Satay
Printable recipe click here

makes 12 sticks

needs to marinate min 2hours

Ingredients

1.5kg Chicken (deboned)

1tsp ground cumin

4 cloves of garlic

4 shallots

1tsp coriander

3 tbsp turmeric powder

400g sugar

4 lemongrass stalk

Salt to taste

For the sauce

4 tbsp of groundnut oil

2 shallots

2 cloves of garlic

2 lemongrass stalks

500g roasted peanuts (roughly pounded)

10g dry chillies

900ml water

100g sugar

2 tsp salt

400ml of coconut milk

200 ml of tamarind concentrate

Method

Thinly slice the chicken meat into 1-inch slices and set aside

Blend the shallots, coriander, cumin, garlic and lemongrass. Mix in the sugar, turmeric powder and salt to taste

Marinate the chicken in the mixture for at least tow hours or overnight in the fridge

Soak the skewers

Place the meat on the grill or barbeque, cook thoroughly

for the sauce, blend the shallots garlic, lemongrass and chillies. Heat a little oil and fry the mixture. When it smells nice add sugar, salt, water and the peanuts. Simmer for 30 minutes or until the sauce is thick enough for dipping.