How To Make Singaporean Satay And Peanut Sauce

Elly Suraya of Satay By The Bay SF makes Singaporean chicken satay with homemade peanut sauce. She marinates and then grills chicken for a tender and smokey skewer that’s served with a nutty and bold peanut sauce.

Check out the recipe here:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/93b5je/chicken-satay-with-peanut-sauce-recipe

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-Hi, I’m Elly, I’m the owner
of Satay By The Bay SF.
Today, I would like to show you
how to make
authentic Singaporean
chicken satay
as well as peanuts sauce.
First thing we’re going to do
is to cut the meat.
We use halal chicken thighs.
The reason is because
of the fat right here.
It will hold a flavor
a little bit better.
So we’re going to
cut them into strips.
So people always think that
satay comes from one country,
but satay actually comes from
all parts of Southeast Asia.
Now this is my version of it
because it comes from my mom
and my grandmother.
Every country’s satay
is different.
If you cut in cubes,
it will take longer to cook
and it may be drier.
If you cut them in strips,
it will actually hold
the flavor a little bit better.
All right,
so now they’re all cut
and I am going
to put them in a bowl.
So we are going to marinate
the chicken right now.
So we have the onion powder,
garlic powder,
ginger, turmeric,
lemongrass powder,
galangal powder, coriander,
fennel, cumin, the white sugar.
And I use molasses, too.
It is a different kind of
sweetness that I choose to have,
just to give it some character.
Don’t forget the salt!
And also a little bit of water,
so that it’s easier
for you to mix it.
So for us Singaporeans, we like
a lot of flavor.
A typical Singaporean satay
consists
of all these ingredients,
as well as the spices.
Now I know that Thailand,
they can skewer the meat
without putting any marinade.
And in Indonesia,
the peanut sauce is very
important, and you know,
they use a little bit more of
the soy sauce on the skewer.
And Malaysia and Singapore
version are pretty similar.
It also depends
on the province of Malaysia,
which part
of Malaysia you can be.
You know, I may be wrong,
but the southern part
of Malaysian cooking and recipes
are a little bit more similar
to the Singaporean style.
You can actually keep it
for 24 hours
so that the flavor
will soak into the meat.
So once it’s done, I’m going
to put it in the fridge.
Okay, it’s been 24 hours
and we are going to skewer.
Now how you skewer
it is also very important.
I would recommend that you weave
it in and out of the skewer.
So that way it has some wave
to it
while still
keeping it to be thin.
Some people have their own way
of skewering — like I,
you know, whatever you do,
it’s your — it’s your skewer.
See, look how easy it is
to glide in through the skewers.
So this is a completed skewer.
Look how beautiful it is,
the wave.
It is actually
American size,
But I’m going to show you
how a typical size
of a Singapore skewer
looks like, okay?
Ta-da! Now let’s
compare it with mine.
It’s actually
three times bigger.
All right, so here are the bunch
of skewers that I have made,
and now we are going to move on
to the star of our food truck,
which is our peanut sauce.
There are so many versions
of peanut sauce —
Thai, there’s Indonesian,
there’s Malaysian,
and this is my version
of peanut sauce.
It’s not my grandparent’s recipe
because that’s a secret recipe.
So this is going to be
the gen– generic
Malay-Singaporean version
of the peanut sauce.
So we’re going to start
with the ground ingredients,
or blended ingredients,
which is
actually the purple onions.
Some people would
rather use shallots
because it is sweeter.
Garlic.
So now we’re going to put
all this stuff in here.
Here we go.
So I just want to talk
a little bit more
about the, uh, palm sugar —
palm sugar, to me,
is what creates the magic.
This is a little bit more milky
and it is richer.
You can put it like this
if you want to,
but you will risk it burning
because it will take longer time
to dissolve.
You can actually use a hammer
or tenderizer, meat tenderizer
if you want to, to cut it.
So this is what I use
as, uh, for tamarind.
I-it comes in blocks, okay?
So I cut it in half,
cut it smaller,
and I’ll soak it in water.
If you want to make it
even smaller for it
to be easier to dissolve,
it’s totally fine.
But we need two other condiments
that we have not done yet,
which is actually the lemongrass
and the galangal.
So let’s go with it
lemongrass first.
I don’t blend it, so I cut it.
This is actually the core
of the flavor.
Cut the bottom,
and you can actually, you know,
peel off the outside
of the lemongrass.
You hammer it,
and I’ll just —
how my mother would do it.
I remember when I don’t beat it
hard enough
and it still looks whole,
and my mom would say, like,
"You did not beat it
hard enough!
Beat it again!"
So here.
Okay, now let’s talk about
the galangal —
at home, we would just,
you know, peel it
and we’re going to treat
this galangal
just like the lemongrass —
we’re going to beat it up.
Let’s get ready to cook.
All right, so first, you got to
heat up the pan.
Once it’s hot you put in
the oil — we use canola oil,
just so you know that this is
the generic recipe
off the peanut sauce,
not my secret recipe.
So I’ll just take a piece
of whatever
that I’m going to put in, which
is, in this case, lemongrass.
Once you hear the crackle
and it’s swimming
and it’s bubbly,
means that it is hot.
I’ll put in my lemongrass.
Medium heat is always good.
Just fry till you can smell.
Here I have the blended onions
and garlic.
♪♪
You can go even browner
if you want to —
crispy means that the blended
ingredients
are not watery anymore
and you can actually see the oil
that separates.
It is very, very, very important
to cook it to crisp.
Because if you don’t cook it
to crisp,
your peanut sauce
will not taste good.
Crispiness means that when
the onions
and garlic looks brownish,
and you will see the oil
coming out of the mixture.
So now we are going to put
the sambal —
that’d be chili, sambal.
And then guess what?
We are going to cook it
to crisp again.
Okay, it looks like
it is pretty crispy.
You can see the oil
right in the bottom here.
I’m going to put the galangal.
This is a tamarind
that I had soaked for
about half an hour in hot water,
so it looks like —
see — brownish.
And you can use your hand
to just keep mashing it.
Put it in.
This is the husk of it,
or rather the pulp.
Do I use it?
Oh, yes, of course.
So just make sure
that you take the seeds out.
So the more pulp
that you put in,
the more sour it will be.
So you might want to put like
half of the pulp.
Don’t get too excited.
And you stir.
Now let’s put in
the palm sugar.
I stir it first
before I put in the peanuts.
You can see that the peanuts
I actually use,
they are a little bit coarse;
they are actually
more like what you use
for banana splits
or even sundaes.
Okay?
It has to be roasted peanuts.
But as long as you don’t put
the whole peanuts in there,
it doesn’t work, okay?
So…
So go ahead
and put the peanuts.
We put in the palm sugar.
Now this is the other sugar
that we’re using,
which is a white sugar,
and that’s a little bit
of salt in there.
So as you can see that
this is really pasty,
so I’m going to put some water.
Just don’t go to town
with water, please,
because you don’t want it
to be too watery.
But also remember that
the peanuts will expand.
You can’t always repair it,
Okay, you can always repair
what you cook.
OK, this is how peanut sauce
will look like.
It looks very watery right now
because the peanuts have not
been like,
you know, expanded
and cooked yet.
So right now, what you do is
that you put that on really low
or medium heat.
And I would say simmer for about
at least half an hour —
half an hour to 45 five minutes.
Do not make this
and forget about it,
so you have to keep stirring it
because of the ingredients
that’s at the bottom.
Okay, it has been about
40 to 45 minutes,
and it seems like
my peanut sauce is ready.
It’s dank!
[ Laughing ]
Like right now it is very,
it is pretty thick,
when you turn the heat off,
everything will
gel together again
and it will get thicker.
All right,
we’re done with the peanut sauce
and now we are getting ready
to grill the satay.
So what I do is that
I’ll just put oil, some oil,
and put a brush in to see
whether it is hot or not.
Looks like the grill is ready.
Just put it in.
You can hear it sizzle.
And put more oil in here,
on here.
The oil actually helps it
to cook and crisp.
Look at all the fire
that’s coming out right now,
so that actually helps
to crisp it
and prevent your meat
from being dry.
On average, it takes about
six to eight minutes to cook.
Just remember, it depends
on the cut of the meat
and how you skewer it.
So if you look at it like
how thin it is,
it will actually cook
about six to eight minutes tops.
So if you have a tiny grill
in the backyard,
yes, it does change everything.
You got to put it on low heat
still about six minutes
and do not —
please do not leave your skewers
on the grill and walk away
because you’re going to burn it.
All right, it has been six
to eight minutes.
It’s time to take them
out of the grill and make them.
Voilà!
♪♪
Here we go,
we’re just gonna dip it in.
♪♪
Oh, my God.
You can actually
taste the sour,
the spicy, the peanuts,
the sweetness of it.
Piece of meat with lots
and lots of flavor.
If you ever want to try
our food truck,
you can follow us on Instagram
and Facebook @SatayByTheBaySF,
or our website,
sataybythebay.com —
that’s where you can find
our schedule.
And for the recipe,
click the link below.
-Making me nervous
with that knife.
-I control the knife,
I master the knife now.
See after it, uh, what do you
call that?
Cut my nail?
I’m good.