Malaysian Food

Ask any Malaysian what their favourite Malaysian dish is, and chances are that it would be 'satay' - pieces of meat skewered on coconut palm sticks, grilled over an open coal fire and served with a delicious spicy peanut sauce. Most visitors to Malaysia have tried 'satay', and even some restaurants in town like the 'Somerset' offers satay. I got a recipe for cooking satay, but the ingredients are quite hard to get. However, in the following recipe, the substitutes for those ingredients would still make a reasonable dish.

Malaysian Satay

Ingredients - ½ kg beef or chicken or pork meat, 50 bamboo meat skewers (available from the Chinese Commodities shops). Seasoning for the meat - 5 small onions, 5 cloves garlic, 1t pepper, 2t curry powder, 1t tumeric, 2T brown sugar, 2T oil, 1t salt.

Satay Sauce: 5 small onions or shallots, 5 cloves garlic; 5 dry red chillies; 1 piece blachan or dry shrimps paste (optional); 2 stalks lemon grass (optional); 2 cups coconut milk; 1 piece assam or tamarind; 1 cup roasted peanuts; salt; sugar to taste; 2T satay paste (available from Chinese shops but optional); 1T curry powder.

Accompaniment with Satay - cucumber cut into cubes; bread, cubed; pineapple cubes, big onion cut into rings, and lettuce.

Method: 1. Slice the meat into thin slices (about 1" by 2").

2. Marinate the meat with the seasoning ingredients for about 30 minutes.

3. Thread about 3-4 slices of meat from the sharp end of the stick and grill over charcoal or under the grill in the oven until cooked. Sprinkle with a mixture of oil and water during the grilling. Turn over the other side and grill until cooked. Then serve with Satay sauce and accompaniments.

Sauce: 4. Grind the red chillies, garlic, small onions, lemon grass, and the blachan and curry powder into a paste. Add a little water if necessary.

5. Crush the peanuts finely after removing the peanut skins.

6. Mix the tamarind with 2 cups of water and discard the seeds.

7. Heat about ½ cup of oil in a frying pan. When hot, add in ingredients 4 to fry. Add in the tamarind water 6 and peanuts 5 and bring to the boil. Add in the coconut milk, sugar, salt. Simmer for 5 minutes and then serve with the satay.

Serving Suggestions

Put a few pieces of bread cubes, cucumber cubes, pineapple, onion rings and lettuce on each individual plate, and serve a few sticks of satay on each plate too. When eating, dip the satay into the satay sauce, and also eat the bread and vegetables in the same way as well.

Note - Add fewer chillies if you prefer the sauce to be less hot.

Bon Appetit

Vincent Wong