Satay sauce is a rich, creamy peanut-coconut sauce used in Thai cuisine, typically paired with grilled meats. It balances hot, salty, sour, and sweet flavors, and can be diluted with water. To make it at home, cook coconut milk, peanut butter, cane sugar, fish sauce, red curry paste, and curry powder for 20 minutes, then add lime juice. It can be refrigerated for a week or frozen for two months.
Satay sauce is a rich peanut-coconut based sauce used in Thai cooking. This thick, creamy sauce is typically paired with grilled meats like chicken or beef, served classically on skewers. It can also be served over vegetables or meat on a bed of rice and used in a variety of other ways. Many Thai food fans label this sauce as one of their favorite aspects of Thai cuisine.
This sauce, like most Thai sauces, represents a balance of hot, salty, sour and sweet. The heat is provided by red chilies or red curry, while the salt comes from peanuts and soy sauce. The sour notes come from fish sauce, traditionally included in satay sauce, while the sweetness is added with brown sugar or molasses. The ingredients are usually cooked together for around 20 minutes to ensure they are thoroughly blended, and the sauce is traditionally served hot.
The satay sauce is intensely rich, thanks to the fats in the coconut milk and peanuts, so a little goes a long way. Some people like to dilute satay sauce with water to make it a little less overwhelming, but in general, sparing use is enough to avoid feeling overloaded by this rich sauce. The sauce can also be served on the side, allowing diners to adjust how much they want to use to taste.
To make satay sauce at home, one cup (236 milliliters) of coconut milk should be poured into a heavy saucepan, along with one-half cup (118 milliliters) of creamy peanut butter, four teaspoons (16 grams) of cane, one tablespoon (15 milliliters) of fish sauce, one tablespoon (15 milliliters) of fish sauce, red curry paste to taste and a pinch of curry powder. An additional half cup (118 milliliters) of hot water should be added to the ingredients before they are stirred and simmered for approximately 20 minutes.
After the flavors taste well combined, you can add the juice of half a lime and the sauce is ready to use. If the sauce isn’t going to be used right away, it can be refrigerated for a week or frozen for about two months. If you freeze satay sauce, consider freezing it in serving-sized bags or containers, so you’re only thawing as much as you need at any given time. Repeated freezing and thawing can adversely affect flavor.
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