Peanut Sauce (Satay Sauce)

9 Aug 2006   | Nuts · Sauce · SE Asian

I love peanut sauce and use it on meat (Satay), on salads (Gado Gado), and even in sandwiches. I’ve been making it for years, but never quite got the effect I found in authentic Thai, Malaysian or Indonesian restaurants. So I studied several of my south-east Asian cook books and came up with this amalgam … and it hits the spot. The secret is to embrace flavour. . .
 

Steven Thomas

Peanut Sauce (Satay Sauce)

Embrace flavour.
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Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

Ingredients for spice paste
  • 1 small onion or 2-6 shallots, chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 1 tablespoon lemon grass finely chopped (about 2 stalks, white part only)
  • 1 teaspoon Sambal Oleg or chilli powder or 3 dried red chillies, seeded and chopped
  • 1 tablespoon ground coriander or 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander and 2 chopped coriander roots
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 2 teaspoons galangal chopped (about 1.5 cm of galangal root)
  • 1/2 teaspoon shrimp paste balacan
  • A little oil
Other ingredients
  • 1 - 2 tablespoons oil
  • 1 1/2 water or 400 ml can of coconut milk for a richer effect - not that it needs it
  • 150 grams unsweetened crunchy peanut butter or ground roasted peanuts
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 2 tablespoon tamarind juice 1 or lemon juice
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Method
 

  1. Blend the spice paste (in a blender or mortar) including enough oil to moisten.
  2. Heat the oil
  3. Stir fry the spice paste until it turns a pale pinky brown and fragrant (5 min)
  4. Add water, peanut butter, sugar, tamarind juice, salt
  5. Stir briskly to mix in the peanuts
  6. Bring to the boil.
  7. Reduce heat and simmer until it darkens (20-30 min), stirring occasionally.
  8. Adjust texture - simmer to thicken; add water to thin

Notes

(1) for 1/3 cup of tamarind juice, soak 1 teaspoon pulp with 1/3 cup of hot water for 5 min, mash, and strain

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