There are few things that do not taste better with this sauce on them. It is quite spicy and will induce a little bit of sweat while you are eating it, but it is generally not unpleasantly hot. This is the classic peanut sauce to serve with Chicken Sateh. It is richly flavored and would be overly sweet if it weren’t for the tamarind, which adds a fantastic tart flavor that pulls it back from the brink.
There are a couple of things worth noting about this recipe. There is not much complicated about the technique here, but the ingredients that you use matter. If you don’t do much Thai cooking, you may not be familiar with the concept of curry paste. When you say the work “curry” in teh context of Thai cooking, this is the stuff that you are talking about. Rather than the yellow powder that you buy in a jar, curry paste is a complex blend of chilies, garlic, shallots, lemon grass, galangal, lime leaves/rind, and other spices. Fortunately, it comes in a plastic tub so you don’t have to make it yourself. Mae Ploy is the brand I use and it is available in most asian grocery stores. If you can’t find it, drop me a line and I can explain how to make it from scratch….
