Mot people I know love a good chicken satay, but the offerings in restaurants can often be very one-dimensional in flavour, whereas if you’ve enjoyed the dish in South East Asia, you’ll know how complex the flavours in both marinade and sauce can be. This barbeque chicken satay with tamarind peanut sauce is from Shu Han Lee’s Agak Agak: Everyday Recipes from Singapore and is everything I love in a really food chicken satay.

Do make sure you have a really good spice grinder to hand, as our ageing appliance struggled a little with the lemongrass in particular.

Read more about the book in our full review of Agak Agak: Everyday Recipes from Singapore by Shu Han Lee.

Print Pin

BBQ Chicken Satay with Tamarind Peanut Sauce

Growing up in 1990s Singapore, I have fond memories of the neighbourhood Satay Man and his mobile kitchen. You would know he was round the corner with the ‘toot toot’ of his motorcycle horn and the unmistakable whiff of smoke and spices. My sisters and I would then run out with plates and bowls for him to fill up with sticks of barbecued satay and that legendary peanut sauce. Traditionally, for the latter, you would use freshly roasted and ground peanuts, but I find a jar of good peanut butter – deep-roasted and crunchy – makes a brilliant everyday shortcut.

Author Shu Han Lee

Ingredients

For the rempah (spice paste)

100 g (3½ oz) shallots, roughly chopped
3 lemongrass stalks, base only, finely chopped (reserve the woody tops)
2 large fresh red chillies
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp fine sea salt
1½ tbsp light soy sauce
1½ tbsp light brown sugar
3 tbsp vegetable oil

For the satay

300 g (10½ oz) boneless chicken thigh fillets, cut into 2.5 cm (1 in) pieces
10 bamboo skewers
vegetable oil, for grilling

For the peanut sauce

3 tbsp vegetable oil
3 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
3 tbsp tamarind paste
about 150 ml (5½ fl oz / ⅔ cup) water
fine sea salt, to taste

To serve

1 cucumber, chopped into bite-sized chunks
½ red onion, sliced

Instructions

I like to do all the prep work the night before, or at least 2 hours ahead. Pound all the spice paste ingredients using a pestle and mortar or whizz in a small blender until you get a fine paste. Mix half the spice paste with the chicken and set aside in the fridge. Soak the bamboo skewers in water, to prevent them from burning during cooking later. The next day, thread the chicken onto skewers, about 4–5 pieces per skewer.
To make the peanut sauce, fry the remaining spice paste in oil in a small frying pan set over medium heat until very fragrant, about 10 minutes. Stir often as there’s sugar in this spice paste, and we want it to caramelise but not burn! Add the peanut butter and tamarind, frying for another few minutes until darkened. Stir in enough water to loosen, and bring to a simmer – the sauce should have a thick but pourable consistency. Taste and adjust the seasoning with a pinch more salt or sugar if needed, then set aside.
When ready to cook, fire up your barbecue; or in the likely event it is raining, set a cast-iron griddle pan over the stove on high heat. Grill the chicken for 6–8 minutes until golden brown and charred. You want to rotate the skewers every couple of minutes, brushing the chicken with oil while it cooks. Do as the Satay Man would and use the reserved lemongrass tops as a brush for extra fragrance. Bonus: it’s no-waste!
Serve the satay straight away, with bowls of peanut sauce and chunks of cucumber and red onion. It’s customary to start with a chicken satay, so you have an empty stick to skewer the cucumber and onions with, and dunk generously in peanut sauce.

I found the cumin in the marinade just a touch too strong for my palate, so we’ll adjust it down a little next time, following Lee’s encouragement to apply agak agak (estimation and feel) to our cooking but these really were a delight and easy to make.

Let us know if you make this. What did you think?

Find more Southeast Asian recipes, here.

Are you looking for ways to use peanut butter?

This recipe is extracted from Shu Han Lee’s Agak Agak: Everyday Recipes from Singapore cookbook and republished with permission from Hardie Grant. Book photography by Ola O. Smit. Home photography by Kavita Favelle.

BBQ Chicken Satay with Tamarind Peanut Sauce