Lunchtime satay at my house in Seminyak Bali

With the arrival of Jevon and the imminent arrival of Ika's dad from Java, we are planning a bbq party sometime soon. It occurred to me that with most of the guests being Indonesian, cooking big chunks of meat might not be the way to go. Indonesians love small, chewy bits rather than a 1-lb. slab of chicken breast, like us 'bules'. Satay vendors are all over Bali and today I experimented with some home made satay for the relos. I bought a couple of huge breasts from Bintang supermarket for 50,000rp. We had enough meat for about 40 big sticks and after slicing them and threading them onto the skewers, all we had to do was cook them. Satay sauce over here comes in 2 main types, peanut sauce and the spicy, tangy mixture they make using a variety of ingredients. I love the second type, but it really takes a long while to make, I've tried before.

Today we soaked the sticks in kecap (soy sauce), then I applied sambal pedas (hot sambal) sauce and some garlic bbq sauce. The thin strips take only a few minutes to cook and I said to Ika, "We’ve got the satay factory going on here." with a little production line moving across my grill. This would work great for a big party, do all the work beforehand and knock out a ton of sticks in about an hour.

The result was pretty good, but I want to arrange with a street vendor a jar of the real sauce in time for my bbq party. That will knock their socks off!