After last week's repeat of the Malaysian Food Safari, I thought that I'd run through a recipe to show it can be done at home. Malaysian food feels like cheating to me: it tends to influence most of the curries and stir-fries that I subsist on. Then I found this on the SBS satay recipe:

This receipe [sic] failed to progress past the marinade. No quantities are given for almost all of the ingredients and an attempt at guessing quantities provided an unsavory flavour. Also, there isn't a media clip to review the cooking process which may have helped. The one star rating should be negative but this system won't allow a 'no rate' or 'negative rate'

Glenys of Wesleigh on SBS Food's satay recipe.

Glenys, I feel your pain.

The hard part about transcribing most recipes out in the field is that it is rare for many home-cooked foods to have recipes. People tend to know a recipe for satay off by heart and seem to have lost the belief that there is any accuracy to the way that they roughly combine spices and herbs. It takes practice and knowing the right flavour profile for it all to come together.

Satay is also a food that you would pick up in the street in Kuala Lumpur, cooked over coals along a narrow grill that could easily double as a piece of guttering for a roof. You would not necessarily cook it at home at all.

Here is my take on the SBS recipe:

Ingredients

600gm Chicken, skinned chicken thighs into long strip; or beef

Wooden skewers

Marinade

1 stalk lemongrass, chopped
50gm white onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp turmeric powder or 3cm sized piece of fresh turmeric root, skinned
1/2 tbsp ground cumin
1/2 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tsp ground cinammon
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup of white sugar
3 tablespoons of oil

Sauce:

3 tablespoons peanut butter
1 tablespoon peanuts, deep fried and ground

Method:

In a blender, blend lemongrass, onion, garlic, turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, salt and coriander seeds to a fine paste. Alternately, pound in a mortar and pestle, starting with dry/hard ingredients (coriander seeds/salt) and moving through to the wet (lemongrass/garlic/onions).

Add the and oil. Mix then set aside 2 tablespoons of the marinade for the sauce.

Pour remaining marinade over chicken pieces, cover and leave for 1-2 hrs in the refrigerator

Thread chicken onto skewers. Cook on a barbecue over hot coals, turning frequently.

For the sauce:

In a frypan, add the marinade that you set aside (NOT the marinade from the chicken) and fry with a little oil for a minute or two until you can smell the fragrance of the marinade. Add the peanut butter and peanuts. Cook for 10 minutes until sauce thickens. Taste and season if necessary. If the sauce is too thick, add a little more oil and peanut butter.