How it works
What to eat with chicken satay starts with three things: peanut sauce, rice cakes, and cucumber, raw or pickled. These 35 ideas add rice, bread, salads, soups, bigger dishes for the same table, sweets and three drinks.
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How satay is served, country by country
Satay may come garnished with crisp fried shallots, with acar, a vegetable pickle, on the side. In Malaysia satay is often served with ketupat rice cakes, cucumber and raw onion, and in Thailand with a pickled cucumber relish. In Suriname it often comes with white bread, rice cakes or fried rice. In Dutch pubs, a popular plate is satay next to French fries and salad.
From starter to dinner
A plate of skewers is all meat and sauce. Add one filling thing, rice cakes or rice, and one sharp, cold thing, a pickle or a salad. With a soup first or a second dish beside it, the starter becomes dinner.
- Warm the peanut sauce before it goes to the table, and thin it with a little water if it has stiffened.
- Set out two bowls of sauce, one plain and one with sambal stirred in, so everyone can choose their heat.
Questions and answers
What sides go with chicken satay?
Start with rice cakes or rice and a cucumber relish. Then add one vegetable dish: gado-gado, the Indonesian salad with a peanut dressing, vegetables in coconut milk, or a plate of raw vegetables with chili paste.
What sauce goes with chicken satay?
Peanut sauce is the most common. Sweet soy sauce, called kecap manis, is widely used with satay too, and sambal adds heat. Hainanese satay in Singapore has a pineapple sauce, and crushed pineapple stirred into peanut sauce gives a quick version of it.
What rice goes with chicken satay?
Compressed rice cakes are the customary choice. Ketupat is rice boiled in a pouch woven from young palm leaves; lontong is rice rolled in a banana leaf, boiled and cut into small cakes. Steamed jasmine rice is the easy stand-in.
What is the cucumber relish served with satay?
In Thailand it is called achat. The pickle called acar is slivers of cucumber, carrot and onion in vinegar, salt and sugar. Serve either one cold, next to the hot skewers.