This is my take on a lightly spiced peanut dipping sauce: ideal for satays.
I love any satay, regardless of which meat, fish or vegetables are on the skewers. In fact, I will almost always order a satay as part of a starter when eating out at a Chinese, Thai or Indonesian restaurant. But for me it’s the accompanying sauce that I get most excited about, especially if it is a peanut-based sauce.
This peanut sauce is a superb dip in its own right and is also great for carrot batons, spring rolls, prawn crackers, dumplings and the like. I also like it with my Thai-style sweetcorn fritters (here).
I got the basic recipe for this peanut sauce many years ago from a Thai restaurant I used to frequent. They made what I felt was THE best peanut sauce and I ordered it every time! They once told me the ingredients they used, so I have adapted this recipe from there. The restaurant sadly closed years ago, but my adaptation of their fabulous peanut sauce lives on.
Peanuts
While you could use peanut butter, you get much more flavour if you use roasted peanuts. These need to be crushed until you get mostly powdered peanuts with a few smallish chunks: a food processor is ideal, but you can also do this using a pestle and mortar.
I use a bag of salted roasted peanuts, rinse them to get rid of most of the salt, dry them a bit and then pop them in the oven to toast further: I go 160°C for about 10 minutes or until you can see light tinges of brown appearing. You don’t want the nuts to go too dark as they will turn bitter.
If using peanut butter instead of peanuts, go for a crunchy version and a peanut butter with just one ingredients: peanuts! The cheap stuff with palm oil and other things lurking in there are really best avoided. In the recipe, as soon as you remove the lime leaf and lemongrass and the heat is turned off, simply stir 3 heaped tablespoons of peanut butter into the sauce. This allows the peanut butter to gently melt into the sauce without splitting.
Tamarind water
I love the sourness you get from tamarind. While I sometimes use blocks of dried tamarind pulp, I often use concentrated tamarind paste that comes in jars in the supermarket. The paste needs diluting as it can easily overpower a dish.
To use the paste, simply add 1 tablespoon of the paste to about 60ml boiling water and stir well. Taste it to check the level of sourness: it should have a mild tang as I think for this sauce is right. You can always add a little more tamarind if you want more sourness.
Spices and other flavours
Palm sugar: this is wonderful if you have some, but you can instead use soft brown sugar or even caster sugar if you wish.
Massaman paste: I use a good quality ready-made paste which really boosts the flavour of the sauce. You can instead use a red Thai curry paste for more of a chilli kick.
Lime leaf: I like to add a fresh or even frozen lime leaf as it imparts a gorgeous flavour and aroma to the sauce. It is by no means essential, so leave it out if you can’t get hold of it or if all you can find is dried, which is a poor alternative to fresh. I always like to keep lime leaves in the freezer to take out as and when.
Lemongrass: the outer layers of lemongrass can be added, but it is not essential. As the outer layers are very fibrous, they often get discarded, so I freeze the outer layers whenever I prepare lemongrass and use them straight from the freezer. They will infuse whichever hot liquid you pop them into immediately.
Recipe: peanut dipping sauce – serves 3-4
- 80g finely crushed roasted peanuts, see above recipe
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1.5 teaspoons Massaman curry paste
- 1 lime leave
- outer layers of 1 lemongrass, optional
- 150ml coconut milk
- about 2 tablespoons tamarind water, see above
- 1 teaspoon Thai fish sauce
- 1 rounded tablespoon palm sugar or soft brown sugar
(1) Heat the oil in a small pan over a medium heat and stir in the curry paste. Cook the paste for about a minute, stirring all the time.
(2) Add the remaining ingredients and over a low heat, stirring all the time, bring to a gentle simmer.
(3) Let the mixture simmer gently for about 5 minutes or until some of the liquid has evaporated and the mixture has noticeably thickened.
(4) Remove from the heat and discard the lime leaf and lemongrass.
(5) Leave to cool a little and taste to see if you want to fine-tune the sauce it in any way. For example: a little more sugar for sweetness or fish sauce for saltiness or tamarind for sourness.
(6) The sauce is now ready to serve. Alternatively, you can leave it to cool before emptying it into a clear jar, putting the lid on and refrigerating for up to a week. If you want to reheat the sauce, empty it into a small pan and place over a low heat for a few minutes, stirring all the time. If it is too thick, simply stir in a splash of water.
