[Sca-cooks] Satay (was Galangal)

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Elaine Koogler <ekoogler at chesapeake.net> wrote:
>I'm also very fond of satay...often served as an appetizer.  It's usually
>strips of beef that have been marinated in a mixture of coconut milk,
>peanut butter, red curry paste and other stuff, then grilled.  They can be
>very hot, but you can ask for them not so hot.  They come with a peanut
>butter/coconut milk dipping sauce.
>
>Kiri

Satay, also spelled sate (final "e" is pronounced) is actually a
Malay dish, common in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, which has a
moderately large Malay population.

I rarely eat Thai satay, having had "the original". And i think one
is better off with more interesting first course dishes, such as the
salads and a real meal meat course.

There are an incredible variety of possible sates in Indonesia,
primarily in Java and Bali.
Besides "beef" and chicken, there was also pork (in Bali since the
Balinese are not Muslim), "meatballs", marinated tofu, marinated
tempeh, etc.

The typical "dipping sauce" is Indonesian sweet soy sauce
(ketjap/kecap manis) with lots of tiny killer-hot chilis cut up in it.

Sate, in any case, is mostly a snack food. There are restaurants in
Java that sell only sate (well, and rice and a few typical sides
dishes, like fresh cucumber in sweetened vinegar with more chopped up
tiny killer-hot chilis). But most typically, Indonesians buy sate
from a wandering sate vendor.

When i lived in Jakarta, prepared food vendors came down the "gang"
(a road just wide enough for a betjak or one pedestrian and one motor
scooter) at two times during the day:
1. in the late afternoon, around 4 PM, as people were getting up from
the afternoon nap.
2. in the evening after dinner - until around 11:30 PM.

The sate vendor came in the evening. He had this thingy over his
shoulder - two interestingly shaped, tall boxes, one at each end of
his pikulan - that is, a carrying pole. Each had several levels and a
pyramidal roof which hung off the end of pole. One end held his
ingredients on shelves behind glass doors (yes, NO refrigeration),
the other was a charcoal brazier. He'd cook the sate to order.

As he entered the gang and as he walked through he'd call out in a
particular cadence:
Tay!!!
Sa-TAY!!!

Tay!!!
Sa-TAY!!!

Anahita,
missing the street sounds of food and snack vendors (and the smells and tastes)
and the early morning raw fish vendor who mysteriously called out:
"Pook!" over and over at a very high pitch - i don't know if it was
dialect. It certainly wasn't Bahasa Indonesia or Bahasa Jawa.