Chicken satays with peanut sauce and fresh pickled cucumber. Served with gado gado salad platter. Yesterday I marinated some 2 cm cubes of thigh fillet in a mix of ground coriander, cumin, turmeric, minced garlic, soy sauce, lemongrass paste and peanut oil. Today they get threaded onto soaked bamboo skewers, and are destined for the barbecue. For the salad, I hard boil eggs, cool, peel and cut into quarters. I get a steamer going and steam in the following order : small potatoes, trimmed green beans, shredded cabbage and snow peas. Drain, cut potatoes when cool and reserve all. I heat a small pan and fry cubes of tofu in peanut oil. Drain on paper towels. The peanut sauce has evolved over the years from a recipe in a 30 year old cookbook- "The Cooking of Southeast Asia " published in 1984.... In a small sauce pan I heat crunchy peanut butter and water, then add minced garlic. When the mixture boils and thickens, I turn off the heat and add lemon juice, brown sugar, soy sauce and chilli paste, and a little coconut milk, all to taste. Half of this gets thinned with some of the rice wine and sugar mix from the cucumber pickle (below) to make the salad dressing, the rest is a dipping sauce. The cucumbers get cored, quartered and finely sliced, I add a de seeded chilli, some grated ginger and diced red onion, then pour over a mix of rice wine vinegar, sugar and salt which has been heated to dissolve the sugar. I place the salad veggies, the tofu, and a few lettuce leaves on a plate, top with bean sprouts, then drizzle the dressing over. Fire up barbie, grill satays until just cooked. Serve on lettuce leaves, with peanut sauce and cucumber pickle in bowls on the side. Eat.
