Peanut sauce, satay
sauce, bumbu kacang, sambal kacang, or pecel is
an Indonesian sauce made from ground roasted or fried peanuts,
widely used in cuisines worldwide.
Peanut sauce is used with meat
and vegetables, adding flavor to grilled skewered meat, such as satays, poured
over vegetables as salad dressing such as in gado-gado, or as
a dipping sauce.
The main ingredient is ground
roasted peanuts, for which peanut butter can act as a
substitute.Several different recipes for making peanut sauces exist, resulting
in a variety of flavours, textures and consistency. A typical recipe usually
contains ground roasted peanuts or peanut butter (smooth or
crunchy), coconut milk, soy
sauce, tamarind, galangal, garlic, and spices (such
as coriander seed or cumin.) Other possible ingredients are chili
peppers, sugar, fried onion, and lemongrass. The texture and
consistency (thin or thick) of a peanut sauce corresponds to the amount of
water being mixed in it.[citation needed]
In Western countries, the
readily and widely available peanut butter is often used as a substitute
ingredient to make peanut sauce.To achieve authenticity, some recipes might
insist on making roasted ground peanuts from scratch, using traditional stone mortar
and pestle for grinding to achieve desired texture, graininess and earthy
flavour of peanut sauce. This sauce is popularly applied on chicken skewers,
beef satay or warm noodles
