| Peanut sauce | |
| Alternate Name: | Satay sauce, bumbu kacang, sambal kacang, pecel |
| Country: | Indonesia[1] |
| Type: | Condiment |
| Served: | Room temperature |
| Main Ingredient: | Ground roasted peanuts, water and spices |
| Other: | Now part of global cuisine, but associated mainly with Southeast Asian cuisine. |
Peanut sauce, satay sauce (saté sauce), bumbu kacang, sambal kacang, or pecel is an Indonesian sauce made from ground roasted or fried peanuts, widely used in Indonesian cuisine and many other dishes throughout the world.[2]
Peanut sauce is used with meat and vegetables, with grilled skewered meat, such as satay,[3] poured over vegetables as salad dressing such as in gado-gado, or as a dipping sauce.
Many different recipes for making peanut sauces exist, resulting in a variety of flavours, textures and consistency. The main ingredient is ground roasted peanuts, for which peanut butter can act as a substitute.[4] Other typical ingredients include coconut milk, soy sauce, tamarind, galangal, garlic, and spices (such as coriander seed or cumin).[2] Other possible ingredients are chili peppers, sugar, fried onion, and lemongrass. The texture and consistency of a peanut sauce mainly reflect the amount of water being mixed in it.
Peanuts were and Spanish merchants into Indonesia in the 16th century. Peanuts thrived in the tropical environment of Southeast Asia. In Indonesian cuisine, they are found roasted and chopped in dishes and in marinades, and as dipping sauces.[5]
Bumbu kacang (peanut sauce) features in many Indonesian signature dishes, such as satay,[6] gado-gado, karedok, ketoprak, rujak and pecel, or Chinese-influenced dishes such as siomay. It is usually added to main ingredients (meat or vegetables) to add taste, used as dipping sauce such as sambal kacang (a mixture of ground chilli and fried peanuts) for otak-otak, or as a dressing on salads. Satay, a popular Southeast Asian street food, is a dish commonly presented as skewered, grilled meat served with peanut sauce. Its popularity has caused the name "satay" to be used to describe both the sauce and the dish.
In sauces, fried peanuts are often combined with gula jawa (palm sugar), garlic, shallot, ginger, tamarind juice, lemon juice, lemongrass, salt, chilli, pepper, and kecap manis (sweet soy sauce). Combinations of these ingredients are ground together and mixed with coconut milk or water. Indonesian peanut sauce tends to be less sweet than its Thai adaptation.
Peanut sauce reached the Netherlands through its former colonization of South East Asia. Besides being used in certain traditional Indonesian and Dutch-Indonesian dishes, it has found its way into a purely Dutch context as a condiment when it is eaten during, for instance, a (non-Asian style) barbecue or with French fries. A popular combination at Dutch fast food outlets is French fries with mayonnaise and peanut sauce (often with raw chopped onions and with ketchup or Dutch currysauce), called a Patatje Oorlog (lit. "Fries War").[7] Peanut sauce is also eaten with baguette, bread, cucumber or potatoes. It is also used as an ingredient in the deep-fried snack food called Satékroket, a croquette made with a flour-thickened ragout based on Indonesian satay.