Satay Ayam Madura

The other day, I went into my storeroom to take some old newspapers. While taking a few pages out from the stack, I chanced upon  a recipe. Satay Ayam Madura. Eh, this looks interesting!

When I read the recipe, I thought it was rather strange because the marinade for the satay was simply sweet soya sauce (kicap manis) and peanut sauce. In fact, the peanut sauce was made with just peanuts, shallots, red chilies, palm sugar, a bit of lime juice, salt and water.

Where is the lemongrass? Or galangal? Well, this is Satay Ayam Madura. Not the usual satay that I am used to. So I googled just to be certain and sure enough, the recipe is legit. 

So that weekend, I asked my partner to take me to the market to buy some chicken. Back home, I got to work. I deboned two chicken legs, cut the flesh into small chunks and marinated with sweet soya sauce. I left it to marinate overnight as I had some other chores to attend to. The peanut sauce would have to wait until the next day.

To make the peanut sauce, it seemed rather daunting to me to roast and then grind the peanuts. If I had lots of time, I would not mind doing that but no, I had lots of other stuff to do. So I used chunky peanut butter instead hee..hee...hee...

I know it does not look appealing (lacking in red chilies) because I simply eyeballed the recipe. But tastewise, I was happy. So I took two tablespoons of the sauce and added that to the chicken which I took out from the fridge to come to room temperature.

After 30 minutes or so I threaded the chicken pieces onto satay sticks. I got me 8 rather large satays.

I mean, who has time to thread 20 satay sticks? hee..hee..hee.. These were grilled in the oven for 10 minutes (5 minutes each side) at 200C. They turned out quite all right don't you think?

These satays are meant to be served garnished with fried shallots hence the sprinkling of fried shallots that you see up there. To be honest, I wasn't too confident that they would taste any good seeing that they lacked aromatics like ginger, lemongrass and spices.

To my surprise, these were rather good on their own and even better dipped in peanut sauce. It was worth all the effort to make this very tasty Satay Ayam Madura. 

Satay Ayam Madura

Recipe source : Adapted from here

For the satay :

- 500g chicken meat, cut into  (from 2 large chicken legs)

- 3 tbsp sweet soay sauce (kicap manis)

- 1 tsp cooking oil

- 8 satay sticks

For the peanut sauce

- 300g chunky peanut butter (I used Pics)

- 3 shallots

- 4 red chilies

- 3 heaped tablespoons of gula melaka

- 1 tsp salt (or to taste)

- About 500 ml water

Garnishing :

- Fried shallots

Method :

Peanut Sauce :

- Make the peanut sauce first as you need some as marinade for the chicken.

1. Blend shallots and chilies.

2. In a saucepan, add peanut butter, blended chilies and shallots, gula melaka, salt and water.

3. Bring mixture to a boil and then simmer until the sauce thickens. If it is too thick, add some water. Taste and adjust for seasoning.

Satay :

1. In a mixing bowl, add chicken meat, sweet soya sauce and 3 tablespoons of peanut sauce. Marinate for about 30 minutes.

2. Thread marinated chicken onto the satay skewers.

3. Grill in the oven for 10 minutes at 200C, turning at half time and basting with the marinade.

4. Place satay on serving plate and sprinkle with fried shallots. Serve with peanut sauce.