Rini and Ewan – should they ever find the time – don’t need to add new items to their
regular menu. Pretty much everything is a hit and has been so for all the years they’ve been
running their market stall of fabulous Indonesian street food.
Or, more specifically, East Javanese food, which is where Rini comes from. The ‘Indo
Breaky’, the Nasi Goreng and the Mie Goreng, the corn and vegetable fritters – all turn over
so quickly that Rini barely has time to chat as she tongs spring rolls and corn batter into
bubbling oil and spoons her luscious peanut sauce over golden grilled chicken skewers.
It's that sauce I’m wanting her to tell me about: I’d recently heard it described as the best
one around. Generally referred to as ‘satay’ sauce due to its common application as a sauce
for skewered meats or vegetables, or ‘satay’, it’s traditionally made from ground roasted
peanuts which are blended with spices, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, tamarind and coconut milk
– but after some research I found there to be a whole host of differing versions. The key to
this sauce, however, is that it be a balance of sweet, spicy and sour. Rini – and why should
she? – won’t give away her secret recipe for it but does confide that she uses kaffir lime and
no tamarind for the citrus component. It takes her a couple of hours to make more than
three litres a week of it required to service the three markets she and Ewan do.
I wanted to give the sauce a go myself. Consulting various cookbooks – Alvin Lee, Charmaine
Solomon amongst others – I ended up with a hybrid which, while far from authentic, tasted
absolutely gorgeous draped over grilled chicken skewers. I broke the peanut rule by using
wonderful l buttery Marlyvale Farm pecans: Rini would have been horrified, but we
devoured with gusto.
Indonesian Kitchen is at Mullumbimby every Friday from 7 – 11am
