Thai Satay with Peanut Sauce

Both use skewered grilled meat with peanut sauce, but the details differ. Thai satay marinade typically includes lemongrass, turmeric, coriander, cumin, and coconut milk — warm spices with a clear Southeast Asian herb character. Indonesian satay marinade is simpler, often just sweet soy sauce (kecap manis), garlic, and shallots. The sauces differ more: Thai satay sauce is built on coconut milk and red curry paste with coarsely ground peanuts; Indonesian satay sauce is tamarind-forward and less creamy. Thai satay is generally milder and more coconut-rich; Indonesian is bolder and more sour.

Yes, and many recipes do — it produces a quick, smooth, rich sauce that is genuinely delicious. Combine peanut butter with coconut milk, red curry paste, fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, and a small amount of water to achieve a dipping consistency. This version is smooth and homogeneous. The traditional Thai approach uses coarsely ground roasted peanuts, which produces a sauce with texture — grainy, nutty bits in a coconut-curry base. Both are valid; the peanut butter version is faster and the ground peanut version is more texturally interesting and considered more authentic.

Chicken thigh, boneless and skinless, is the best cut for satay. It has more intramuscular fat than breast, which keeps it moist even at the high heat required to achieve caramelisation. Breast meat cooked quickly over charcoal dries out easily because the muscles are lean and the fibres are long. If you prefer using chicken breast: slice it very thinly (3 to 4 mm strips) across the grain, marinate overnight in coconut milk, and pull it from the grill the moment it loses its pink colour — the window between cooked and dry is narrow.

Soak bamboo skewers in cold water for at least 30 minutes — ideally 1 hour — before threading the meat. Waterlogged bamboo burns significantly more slowly than dry. When threading, leave 3 to 4 cm of skewer exposed at the handle end — this portion rarely gets direct heat exposure. On a very hot grill, the exposed tip can still char; keep a small dish of water nearby to briefly dip the ends before cooking. Metal skewers avoid this problem entirely but conduct heat and the meat can slide.

Yes. Replace the chicken with firm tofu (pressed well, cut into thick strips), tempeh, or thick slices of king oyster mushroom. Marinate for the same time. Replace fish sauce with soy sauce in both the marinade and the peanut sauce. Tofu satay works particularly well — the marinade penetrates the porous texture deeply, and the coconut milk creates a golden caramelised exterior when grilled over high heat. The peanut sauce is the same. Mushroom satay has the best char of the vegetarian options because of the natural moisture in the mushroom creating steam-caramelisation.