Satay

The most famous Malay dishes are satay - spicy skewered pieces of chicken or beef, marinated and barbequed over a charcoal fire and eaten with peanut sauce and is our own version of a Western kebab, only sweeter and somewhat smaller. Pieces of softened, marinated meat are skewered on a thin stick made of coconut frond (‘lidi’ in Malay). It is then barbecued over a tray of hot steaming charcoals until brown and tenderly moist. A wide range of meat can be used from rabbit to venison but beef and chicken is the most common. Accompanying it is thick peanut gravy and ‘ketupat’, rice cooked in coconut milk, cut into cubes and wrapped into an attractive weave of coconut leaves. Traditionally, Malays wash and then eat with their hands from every meal while sitting across straw mats, but forks and spoons are more often used.