I came to this thread to say exactly this too;
When making curries, it’s the toasting of cumin, coriander and tumeric which is the key. Before toasting turmeric is a mildly chalky mostly flavourless spice. After, it’s just something else completely.
Not toasting those three spices is the main fail of most homemade curries.
Posting that recipe got me thinking I haven’t made chicken satay in awhile, and I had most of the ingredients, so I have the chicken marinating now for dinner.
Couple notes on that recipe I posted— I thought it looked like the one I’ve used in the past, but it called for just salt, no soy sauce, which I think is essential. So I added soy sauce in place off the salt. I added a bit of fish sauce too. I like the umami in addition to just sodium.
The one ingredient I didn’t have was tamarind paste, so googling suggested either rice vinegar, or plain white vinegar plus a little brown sugar to balance tart / sweet was a good sub. I had rice vinegar so I used that.
I think I have coriander seeds and cumin seeds. I think. I don’t have white peppercorns. Do have ground turmeric and cinnamon. Don’t have tamarind paste or coconut milk. Oh, and I don’t have chicken breasts.
Sound like a good idea to replace the salt with soy sauce. I do have rice vinegar. I presume brown sugar is not added to the rice vinegar (besides, it’s already in the mix)? How mush fish sauce (which I have) do you put in?
I didn’t have white peppercorns either, but I did have black peppercorns and white pepper in powder form. So I used a few black peppercorns that I toasted and ground along with the coriander and cumin, then added some white pepper to the mix too.
Yeah, the substitute for tamarind paste is either just rice wine, since it’s a bit sweet already, or plain white vinegar plus some brown sugar. So yes, since you have rice vinegar no need for extra sweetness.
The fish sauce is really optional; I just added a couple glugs from the bottle. I really just kind of wing it when it comes to ingredient amounts, in addition to tasting the marinade as I go to see if everything seems balanced (before adding the raw chicken, of course).
Any mix and match combo of what ingredients you have will make a tasty satay. Maybe lemon or lime juice instead of tamarind paste or vinegar. The only ingredient I probably wouldn’t sub out is the coconut milk. Heavy cream or yogurt might work and taste good, but it would be different than a classic satay. Also, yeah, no chicken is a bit of an issue. Some different meat might be an interesting experiment though. Beef satay?
From a “no problem, I have that in my pantry all the time” perspective, that’s probably the right answer. But if you have it, lemon juice is a better sub as it imparts a similar fruity note that vinegar lacks. In fact, I use lemon juice sometimes even when I have tamarind on hand, if I am color-conscious. It’s sad to make a beautiful sambal with red chilis, then turn it dark brown with tamarind!
My sister had some turmeric on her counter when she was making potato salad, and I asked her what she uses it for. She said her husband told her that her potato salad needed more mustard, but she personally doesn’t like that much mustard. So she puts turmeric in her potato salad to make it more yellow, and he thinks it’s more mustard that’s doing it. (I now add turmeric to my potato salad as well, mostly for the same reason, but I like the flavor it adds.)
Love it.
“We like a lot of mustard in our potato salad, right, Honey?”
“Yep, rich and yellow for us!”
Though be careful with turmeric; literally get it on the counter and you might never get it off. It can stain easily.
Timely topic at my house, my wife is reacting badly to her latest covid vaccine booster, and I’m grumbling through the first cold I’ve had in about 3 years. At times like this our comfort food is often macaroni and cheese so that’s what I made for dinner. I added onions and mushrooms sauteed with turmeric, black pepper and crushed garlic, and added a small chunk of left-over Red Leicester cheese to the package of cheese sauce that comes with the mac n’ cheese mix we use. It turned out very well.
Toasted orange rind is an excellent substitute for tamarind paste.
Cool! For a moment I was horrified, but I was mixing up the “rind” with the “pith.” The rind is the GOOD part.
I am a huge fan of citrus rind now, having acquired a microplane and with our various citrus trees yielding lots of fruit.
I’ll remember that option in case I need/want something besides lemon juice to substitute for tamarind. It sounds delicious.
I probably should have said “zest.” The word just didn’t come to me.
I’ve never understood why everybody thinks the white (pith) of the orange rind is bitter. It has almost no flavor at all. It’s just fiber and vitamin C. It’s the little round bits in the zest that hold the oil and the bitterness. But it’s almost universally believed that the white is the bitter bit. I always eat it as it’s the healthiest part of the orange.
In my experience, pith is pretty bitter. I’ve been making a lot of lime marmalade as we have two trees that are insanely productive right now. I’ve done it with lots of pith and a little pith and no pith.
My findings: the white part is good, in that it is where the pectin is. But it definitely affects the taste, and not in a good way. More pith means more sugar is needed to create a balanced-tasting result, and since I’m not keen on sugar, I’m not keen on pith.
(A solution I just read about that I will use for my next batch: put the pith into cheesecloth, so you can include it with the cooking and get the pectin out, but then discard it from the actual marmalade.)
You seem to be mostly there, but are definitely missing a trick not toasting the turmeric. It really does make a huge difference and people dismiss it because they only think whole seeds should be toasted, and turmeric is ground root. I toast coriander and cumin when they are ground too.
I made this Persian Noodle Soup last night, and it was a big hit, turmeric and all:
Verjuice is even better.
Here yellow rice (turmeric rice with sultanas) is the standard accompaniment to Malay curries and other dishes like bobotie (both of which would already have their own turmeric as well.)
Turmeric here is called borrie
Even better than verjuice would be tamarind paste, which I think was the original ingredient called for.
Sure, but we were discussing substitutes, and I can get verjuice a lot easier than tamarind.
I like to slip some turmeric into my homemade Italian tomato sauce, added at the beginning when onions are frying, along with black pepper. Nobody can tell it’s there! Stealth spice.
Result: Yellow in the center, surrounded by an orange ring, which is surrounded by a red ring, which is surrounded by another orange ring, surrounded by another red ring, surrounded by the original yellow.
Perhaps where you live but most here are in the United States and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.