Satay Chicken with Restaurant Style Peanut Sauce (Indonesian/Bali style)

1. Kecap Manis is a thick soy sauce that has the consistency of syrup. It can be found in the Asian or sauce section of supermarkets and it is cheap – in Australia, it is $2 for a small bottle or $4 for a very large one. It tastes like sweet soy sauce with smokiness, and it is a key ingredient in this recipe. It’s the secret ingredient in 90% of Indonesian recipes!

2. If you puree in a blender, make sure the sauce cools before you blend it. Otherwise it will literally “explode” when you start whizzing it and sauce will splatter everywhere. I made this mistake. 🙂

3. I find that the traditional recipe for Indonesian satay peanut sauce does not come out smooth and rich like you get at restaurants, it comes out a bit gritty, like it has desiccated coconut in it (which it does not). It may be because peanuts in Australia are different. Also, it requires considerable effort to ground the peanuts into a paste (food processor does not work). So this recipe is one I created using peanut butter. It is heavily flavoured with other ingredients so it tastes just like what you get at restaurants.

Here is an authentic Indonesian Peanut Sauce recipe if you want to give it a go: 100g roasted unsalted peanuts, 3 to 5 birds eye chillies, 50 ml kecap manis, 3 shallots/scallions, sliced and 1 tbsp lime juice. Ground all ingredients together, season to taste then serve.

4. This recipe makes more Peanut Sauce than you will need. It is hard to make a smaller batch. It goes great with steamed vegetables and rice, and lasts for at least a week in the fridge (it should last longer, but I think the flavour might fade). Freshen up leftover peanut sauce with a squeeze of fresh lime juice.

5.Nutrition for chicken skewer only (Peanut Sauce is below).

Nutrition for Peanut Sauce based on my estimate that one batch is sufficient for 3 batches of chicken skewers.