I have tried making peanut sauce a few times for Satay, and the recipes I have seen, call for peanut butter. The problem is the sauce ends up tasting like peanut butter. When I go to a thai restaurant, it doesn’t. Any suggestions or recipes would be most appreciated.
Well, before Zenster sweeps in in his cape and tells you the ONLY way to do it, I’ll tell you that I make it WITH peanut butter, but it’s a very small amount. I use about 1/3 cup of pb, 2 tbs of thai chili paste, bit of ginger, 1/2 cup of soy and about 1 cup or more of really hot water (depending how thick you want it)
If you want a good peanut sauce, go to foodtv.com. Tyler Florence kicked ass with chicken satays on Food 911 a few weeks ago.
I don’t have a specific recipe, since I usually just mix it up to taste, but combine approx:
4 parts chunky peanut butter - the chunkier the better
2 parts thai hot sweet and sour sauce (the type where you see all the stuff - pepper flakes, carrot shavings etc. floating in it)
1 part hoisin sauce.
Probably not authentic due to the chinese hoisin suace, but it’s a pretty close approximation.
If you want it to taste like restaurant sauce, you need to find a recipe that contains coconut milk, fish sauce or shrimp paste, Thai curry paste. A lot of grocery stores stock these now. There’s also a commercial satay sauce that isn’t bad. I think “Taste of Thai” is the brand.
You might experiment with different types of peanut butter. They vary greatly in amounts of sugar, taste, etc. Maybe some of that new squeeze-tube stuff would work!
/not a cook
I haven’t made this from scratch, but you might get more peanutty-tasting results from a natural peanut butter (i.e., nothing but peanuts) vs. a commercial conglomeration like Jif, which has sugar and gosh-knows-what-else in it.
Or take a handful of dry roasted unsalted peanuts and put them in the food processor.
Have you tried using natural peanut butter, i.e., peanuts and salt and no other ingredients? That would probably give you better results than, say, Skippy or Jif.
Good point. I also sprinkle the top of my peanut sauce with crushed unsalted peanuts.
I forgot the brown sugar and lime. Very important.
Wow, thanks for the input everyone!!! I haven’t tried using a natural peanut butter or just using crushed peanuts. Rather than experiment, I figured I would just seek out some doper expertise. I think I’m going to try Tyler’s recipe and see how that goes. Feel free to keep contributing recipes though
I have tried a few pre made sauces from the store that were absolutely awful. I have not tried the “taste of thai” though. I’ve been hesitant due to my experiences with the other sauces. Maybe I should.
Thanks again, everyone!
jarbabyj, please feel free to confine your immature attitude to the Pit. This is a forum dedicated to factual answers and not your own catty opinions.
musicguy, if you examine your peanut butter, it probably contains dextrose (sugar) and other flavoring agents that give it the pronounced “peanut butter” taste you have noticed. Others have already mentioned the probable cure for this. A completely natural peanut butter should solve the problem.
Look for only two ingredients in the product you buy. Peanuts and salt, that’s it. Adam’s makes a good all natural peanut butter that is widely distributed. For a really authentic satay, I’d recommend seeking out a natural foods retailer that has a grinder right there in the store. Use roasted unsalted peanuts when you have them make it. This will allow you to get a more authentic taste by using soy sauce or nuoc mam to establish the salt flavor in your sauce.
If you cannot locate any of the Thai fish sauce (nuoc mam), consider using some Worcestershire sauce in its place. This classic English concoction is made with both anchovies and tamarind. These are critical flavor elements commonly found in a lot of Southeast Asian cooking.
Since this is about cooking, I’ll move this thread to Cafe Society.
jarbabyj and Zenster, if you two have problem with each other, confine your comments to the BBQ Pit.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
The greatest expense in preparing Thai peanut sauce is that flight into Thailand…
You can use peanut butter as a base for your peanut sauce, but, like jarbaby said, only use a little bit for your base.
I also add some unsweetened coconut milk in mine, plus some lime juice, and some nam pla, which is the Thai fish sauce (found in your Asian section in the market) which does give it its distinctive flavor. I wouldn’t use Worcestershire becasue it doesn’t quite do it.
Coriander seeds, fresh ginger, and perhaps a little chili paste if you’re up for it will also help.
Worcestershire sauce would be a total and utter disaster. Surely it’s not hard to get fish sauce in the US? We can get it in the supermarket here.
My peanut sauce is usually peanut butter sans additives, coconut milk, lime, palm sugar, fish sauce, ginger, garlic, chilli. David Burton’s recipe in the excellent Savouring the East has lemon peel, macadamias or candlenuts and tamarind added to to it.
Again, thanks for all of your help! It is appreciated. I will make an attempt in a few days and let you know how it turns out.
MrWhatsit makes an excellent peanut sauce from scratch. Getting him to write down a recipe is like pulling teeth from a chicken, but a friend begged and pleaded until he finally made an attempt. I saved it as a text file and will reproduce it here for your benefit, even though it looks like you’re already off and running with everyone else’s suggestions.
This specifically is for Thai “Swimming Rama” or “Swimming Angel” or “Rama Chicken” or whatever you like to call it – basically, sauteed chicken with steamed spinach and peanut sauce, but it contains the peanut sauce recipe within, so I’ll reproduce the whole thing. (A note: we always use the natural peanut butter that several folks mentioned, which may be why MrWhatsit’s peanut butter-based sauce doesn’t taste all peanut buttery.)
Two thoughts, neither of which are perfectly relevant:
My favorite peanut sauce, which is more Chinese than Thai. I cook it with bean thread noodles, red onion and chicken chunks:
1/4 cup peanut butter
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon chicken broth
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon chili oil
Also, I love love love a bottled Thai peanut sauce called Bangkok Padang Peanut Sauce by House of Tsang. Mmm mmm.
Believe it or not, the first recipe I ever encountered for satay pork had Worcestershire sauce in it. This was in 1981 when nuoc mam was not commonly found in many markets. The recipe ran something like this: (from memory)
Chunky peanut butter
Soy sauce
Brown sugar
Water
Worcestershire sauce
Hot sauce
Ginger
Garlic
There were some other ingredients that escape me now. Pork cubes were marinated in and basted with this sauce as they grilled. The result was fantastic, a sort of crunchy nut-like coating on tender bits of roast pork. You should be able to find fish sauce at any nearby Asian market. It will be superior to Worcestershire sauce and more authentic. I just happen to feel it is useful to mention substitutions in case someone does not have similar resources available to them. Since you live in California, you should not have any problem locating an Asian market.