Satay

History

For hundreds of years, the humble, yet exotic dish known as satay has tantalized tastebuds across Southeast Asia. Nothing more than a set of bamboo sticks with skewered meat on them, it has attracted immense popularity. Mouthwatering in its tangy peanut sauces and spices, it combines various meat-offerings to unravel a myriad of different options. In Malaysia, satay has crossed cultures and racial divides to unite everyone to its delicious taste. Just add rice cubes, onions and cucumbers together and a meal is made.

Despite its murky origins – whether brought by Arab traders or Chinese merchants, they say - satay is synonymous with Malaysia. Its unique style of being grilled over open charcoal fires and constantly-fanned by a cook is easily observed every evening in many street corners nationwide.

Close analogues are yakitori from Japan, shish kebab from Turkey, chuanr from China and sosatie from South Africa.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. meat- chicken, beef
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 cup shallots
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1/4 inch piece turmeric root
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/4 cup evaporated milk
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• about 35 bamboo sticks

Peanut Sauce

• 8 dried chillies (soaked until soft). Remove the seeds if you do not like it too hot.
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 cup shallots
• 4 candle-nuts or substitute with macadamia nuts.
• 1/4 cup cooking oil
• 1 cup peanuts (finely ground)
• 1/4 cup thin tamarind juice ( get the tamarind paste, add a little warm water and squeeze the juice, strain)
• 1/4 cup evaporated milk diluted with 1 cup water.
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• salt to taste

For preparing satay :

1. Cut meat into small thin pieces.
   
2. Grind together until very fine: shallots, garlic, coriander seeds, cumin seeds & turmeric.
3. Combine ground spices with salt & sugar.
4. Season meat with the ground spices and let marinate.
5. When you are ready to grill soak the bamboo sticks in water so they won't burn, skewer the meat with the sticks, don't overcrowd.
6. Grill satay sticks over a charcoal fire (barbecue grill), basting occasionally with evaporated milk combined with oil. Or, for the brush, use the head of lemon grass, smash and flatten to resemble a brush.

For preparing the peanut sauce :

1. Grind together until very fine: chillies, garlic, shallots & candle-nuts.
2. In a wok or saucepan, fry ground ingredients in hot oil for 5 minutes.
3. Stir in ground peanuts and tamarind juice.
4. Bring to the boil.
5. Add diluted milk and salt to taste and bring to the boil again.
6. Serve with satay.

Naturally, if you're completely exhausted by all this preparation, go ahead and buy a bottle of peanut sauce at your Asian grocer.

Variations

While the popular kinds of satay are usually beef and chicken satays, different regions of Malaysia have developed their own unique variations of satay.

Satay Kajang

There are a number of well-known satay outlets are in Kajang, Selangor which is dubbed the Satay City in the country. Satay Kajang is a generic name for a style of satay where the meat chunks are bigger than normal and the sweet peanut sauce is served with a dollop of fried chili paste. Hence, Satay Kajang is now found through out Malaysia and not just in Kajang.

Satay Lok-lok from Penang and Satay Celup (dip satay) from Malacca

Both are Malaysian Chinese twists of the hotpot and the Malay satay. Raw meat pieces, tofu pieces, century eggs, quail eggs, fish cake pieces, offal or vegetable pieces are skewered on bamboo sticks. These are cooked by being dipped in boiling water or stock. The satay is eaten with a blackish sweet sauce with or without chili sauce. If the satay is eaten with satay sauce, it is called satay lok-lok. If the satay is cooked with boiling satay peanut sauce, it is called satay celup. This is available either from street vendors or at certain restaurants. Most of them are non-halal.

Where to find Satay?

Satay Kajang Haji Samuri is very popular in Kajang as well as throughout Malaysia. This is currently the most well known chain of satay kajang restaurants. Satay can also be found throughout every state in Malaysia, in restaurants, on the street, with hawkers selling satay in food courts and at pasar malam (Night markets).