Stuck On Sate The Indonesian Grill Recipes

CHICKEN SATAY

Steps:

• If you use bamboo skewers, don't forget to soak them for a few hours before you use them. It's to prevent them from getting burned on the grill/ griddle pan.
• Pound the onion and garlic into a paste. You can use a pestle and mortar, or a food processor.
• Then heat the oil in a small frying pan. Add the onion and garlic paste, the ground coriander, black pepper, salt and lime leaves. Cook until the herbs and spices release an aroma. Set aside.
• Put the chicken pieces in a mixing bowl and add in the cooked spices. Mix and stir well until all meat pieces are coated with the spices. Set aside to marinate for at least an hour or two.
• When you are ready to make your Satay, pierce the chicken pieces on the skewers and start grilling them. You can use your oven grill, a griddle pan, or even a barbecue. I find cooking the satay on a griddle pan is effortless and quicker. But I leave the choice to your preference.
• For the peanut sauce:
• Put the peanuts, onion, garlic, salt, sugar, chilli, and water in a blender. Give it a blitz until you get a creamy but a bit grainy peanut mixture.
• Pour the mixture in a small cooking pan/pot and heat it up. When the peanut sauce is boiling, let it simmer for about 5-7 minutes before you turn the heat off. Set aside.
• Assemble Indonesian chicken satay:
• Arrange the skewers on a plate and pour the peanut sauce over the satay. Then drizzle it with sweet soy sauce.

INDONESIAN CHICKEN SATAY WITH PEANUT SAUCE

Steps:

• In a large bowl add the sliced chicken, kecap manis and melted butter. Mix well to coat. Cover and place in the fridge to marinate for about 30 minutes.
• Soak bamboo skewers in water while the chicken is marinating.
• While the chicken is marinating make the peanut sauce by adding to a small bowl the peanut butter, coconut milk, additional kecap manis, garlic, lime juice, brown sugar and chili flakes. Whisk until smooth and set aside.
• After the chicken has had time to marinate thread the chicken pieces tightly onto the skewers. Discard the water that the skewers were soaking in.
• Heat the barbecue or grill to medium-high heat and lightly grease the grill. Place the chicken satay skewers on the grill for about 10 minutes per side basting with the remaining marinade each time to coat. Continue to cook turning occasionally and basting until the chicken is cooked and no longer pink in the centre and the internal temperature reaches 160F.
• Remove the chicken from the grill and serve alongside the peanut sauce for dipping.

GRILLED CHICKEN SATAY

Steps:

• Put wooden skewers in a shallow dish and cover with water. Let soak for 20 minutes.
• Place chicken strips into a bowl. Combine soy sauce, tomato sauce, peanut oil, garlic, pepper, and cumin in a small bowl; mix to combine. Pour over chicken strips and mix so chicken is well coated on all sides. Marinate for 15 minutes.
• Meanwhile, make the peanut sauce. Add 1 tablespoon oil to a hot skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic. Cook and stir until onion is soft and translucent, about 4 minutes. Add peanut butter, sugar, soy sauce, and water. Mix well. Cook until sauce has thickened slightly, about 5 minutes. Add lemon juice and remove from heat.
• Preheat an outdoor grill for high heat and lightly oil the grate. Thread each chicken strip onto a skewer.
• Place skewers on the preheated grill and cook for a total of 10 minutes, flipping once halfway through cooking. Serve the satay skewers immediately with the peanut sauce for dipping.

CHICKEN SATAY (SATE AYAM)

Steps:

• Soak 14 medium bamboo skewers for 30 minutes in cold water.
• To make the marinade: Put the candlenuts, garlic, chilies, and a little salt in a mortar and grind with a pestle until you have a fine paste-you can also do this in a food processor. Transfer to a bowl. Add the coriander, black pepper, and cayenne and mix well.
• Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the candlenut-garlic mixture and fry until lightly colored, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the peanuts and kecap manis and fry for another couple of minutes. Let cool.
• Prepare a charcoal fire in an outdoor grill or preheat the broiler to high.
• To prepare the satay: Marinate the chicken in the sauce for at least 30 minutes or longer, then scrape the marinade off the chicken before threading it equally onto the skewers. Grill or broil for 3 minutes on each side, or until completely cooked through.
• Meanwhile, scrape the leftover marinade into a small saucepan. Add 1/2 cup (125 ml) water and a little more kecap manis (or a little sugar) and bring to a boil over medium heat. Transfer to a small bowl and serve as a dipping sauce with the grilled chicken.

INDONESIAN SATAY

Steps:

• In a bowl, mix soy sauce, tomato sauce, peanut oil, garlic, black pepper, and cumin. Place chicken into the mixture, and stir to coat. Cover, and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes, but not overnight. This will make the meat too dark.
• Preheat the grill for high heat.
• Heat vegetable oil in a saucepan over medium heat, and saute onion and garlic until lightly browned. Mix in water, peanut butter, soy sauce, and sugar. Cook and stir until well blended. Remove from heat, mix in lemon juice, and set aside.
• Lightly oil the grill grate. Thread chicken onto skewers, and discard marinade. Grill skewers about 5 minutes per side, until chicken juices run clear. Serve with the peanut sauce.

STUCK ON SATE: THE INDONESIAN GRILL

Steps:

• Indonesia is a country of mind-boggling ethnic diversity, with 300 different races and religions. I visited two of the best known of the 12,000 islands in the Indonesian archipelago-Java and Bali-and no matter where I went I found saté (pronounced "sah-tay"). Indonesia's culinary common denominator, these tiny kebabs are served everywhere, from roadside pushcarts to swank hotel restaurants, as a snack or full meal, at religious festivals, sporting events, and at the beach, pretty much any time of the day or night.Simple to make, easy to eat, economical, nutritious, infinitely varied in shape and flavor, satés are one of the most perfect foods devised by man. Not surprisingly, their popularity extends far beyond Indonesia's borders. Satés have become an integral part of the Thai, Malaysian, and Singaporean diet ("satay" is the Malaysian spelling). In the last decade, they've been embraced with equal enthusiasm by contemporary American chefs.A great many misconceptions surround saté, not the least of which is its main ingredient. To most Americans, saté means a small (although rather large by Indonesian standards) chicken or beef kebab served with peanut sauce. In Indonesia, however, there are hundreds of different types of satés to choose from, ranging from the tiny saté lalat (a beef and coconut saté made in such diminutive proportions, its name literally means "fly") to the saté buntel (a ground lamb saté so large it takes four skewers to hold it).The saté-or at least the idea of grilling meat on a stick-seems to have originated with Arab spice traders, who arrived on the island of Sumatra in the eleventh century a.d. The Arabs introduced the Islamic religion to the region, and it's possible they also introduced the Middle Easternnstyle kebab. To support this theory, scholars point to Padang, which was one of the first cities in Sumatra to adopt Islam. Saté padang became one of Indonesia's most beloved satés and remains so to this day. (Of course, the idea of meat on a stick is so universal, it may have originated long before the arrival of the Arabs.)If saté was inspired by the Arab kebab, it quickly acquired its own personality. First, it shrank. The average saté ayam (chicken saté) or saté kambing (lamb or goat saté) is about the size of your baby finger. This makes for great snacking: It's not uncommon for an Indonesian to down 20 or 30 satés at a single sitting. And still not leave the table stuffed.According to Jakarta tourism representative Yuni Syafril, the saté takes its name from a Sumatran word meaning "to stick, stab, or skewer." When you're really angry with someone, explained Syafril you threaten to "saté" them. This sort of etymology is certainly not without precedent in the world of barbecue: Jamaican jerk, for example, is named for juk, the local dialect word for "to stab."Searching Out the BestSyafril was my host in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, and the largest city on Java, and he acquitted his duties with the hospitality for which Indonesians are famous. My first night there, he took me on the Indonesian equivalent of a bar crawl. Our first stop was the Jalan Sabang, a noisy street lined with restaurants (including the famous Padang restaurant Natrabu, not to mention a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Sizzler Steak House). Our destination wasn't a dining establishment, however, but a tiny pushcart on bicycle wheels run by Nurul Phamid, a willowy young man with a faint moustache.Like his father, who set up shop here in 1960, Phamid begins work at 5 p.m. and continues until 3 a.m. His stock in trade is saté ayam, which he prepares and grills by the light of a kerosene lamp. Phamid spends his afternoons threading tiny pieces of chicken thigh, liver, skin, and embryonic chicken eggs onto bamboo skewers not much bigger than broom straws.When you place your order, Phamid prepares the marinade on the spot, mixing ketjap manis (sweet soy sauce), peanut sauce, a squeeze of lime juice, and chopped onion on a dinner plate. He dabs a handful of satés into the mixture, as you would a paint brush, then places them on a tiny charcoal brazier. A few waves of a bamboo fan-the most important piece of equipment in a saté man's kitchen after the grill-and the coconut husk charcoal blazes to life. Phamid bastes the sizzling satés with his secret ingredient-rendered chicken fat. A moment later, they're ready to eat.The accompaniments to this splendid saté include a dollop of peanut sauce, a splash of ketjap manis, and a spoonful of sambal (fiery chili sauce), which are mixed together in a bowl. We were also served a steamed cake of sticky rice, called lontong, which is cooked in a banana leaf. We sprinkled everything with fried shallots. The cost for this princely feast-and it is princely-is 3,000 rupiahs, about 35 cents.Now for Sate PedangOur next stop was a brightly lit sidewalk eatery called Gunung Sari, near Jakarta's lively Kota district. Jakarta operates on a diurnal economy: daytime businesses close their shutters at nightfall and a veritable city of portable restaurants spring up on the sidewalks in front of them. Some, like Gunung Sari, are quite elaborate, complete with generators, fluorescent lighting systems, and white Formica tables. I peered into an enormous cauldron bubbling away over a charcoal fire to see the next dish I was to sample: saté pedang.To make it, beef hearts, tongue, and tripe are simmered for several hours in a fiery broth flavored with ginger, galangal, turmeric, garlic, and palate-blasting doses of black pepper. The cooked meats are cut into tiny dice, threaded on skewers, and grilled over coconut husk charcoal. Meanwhile, the broth has been heavily thickened with rice flour into a starchy gravy. The kebabs and gravy are served on a banana leaf. To wash them down there's iced tea chilled with a chips off a huge block of ice that sits on the sidewalk.I must confess, I'm not a big fan of heart or tongue, and years of restaurant reviewing have conditioned me to disdain starchy gravies. But Gunung Sari's saté padang was one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted. I understood why this rough-and-tumble eatery does such a lively business.During the weeks I spent on the islands of Bali and Java, I sampled an astonishing array of satés. Sausage-size saté buntel (ground lamb and coriander satés) served with sweet-sour tamarind sauce. Tiny saté kalong ("flying fox" satés), a sweet, garlicky ground beef saté named for a nocturnal squirrel that comes out about the same time of day the saté vendors do in the city of Cirebon on the north coast of Java. One night, I feasted on what was the last kind of saté I expected to find on this staunchly Muslim island: saté babi manis (sweet pork saté). I ate it, logically enough, in Jakarta's Chinatown. In Bali I enjoyed one of my all-time favorites, saté lilit, a spicy fish mousse flavored with exquisitely aromatic kaffir lime leaves and grilled on fresh lemongrass stalks.Recipes for these satés and others appear throughout this book-some are better as appetizers, some are better as entrées, and most work well as either. Satés are the perfect grilled food for the new millennium: high in flavor, low in fat, great for casual eating and entertaining, and quick and easy to make. One traditionally eats a relatively small amount of meat in proportion to the vegetable-based accompaniments.