Sate Ampet Sasak with Sambal Kecap and simple Lotek (Indonesian) Lombok-Style Beef Satay with Sweet Soy Sauce Sambal and Steamed Veggies with Peanut Dressing

I love making a whole meal of the same cuisine since the flavours go well together and create THE experience.  I made this Indonesian menu and it was awesome, even though I'm not sure if Indonesians would serve them together...  who cares!?  Not me.  So this plate has beef satay with sambal, boiled vegetables with peanut sauce and fragrant rice (I'll post the recipe for this rice very soon).

The satay are a little different from most satay.  Instead of marinating the meat cubes in a paste, you fry the paste, simmer it with coconut milk, reduce, cool down, and then you mix it with the meat and marinate.  The result was awesome, most satay don't use coconut, some use grated coconut, but coconut milk is one of my favourite tastes/ingredients so I guess this makes these Lombok-style satay one of my favourite satay.  Did I use the word satay enough yet?  Oh, and the sambal/dipping sauce served with the SATAY is simple and simply tastes delicious and addictive.

The lotek is a quick vegetable side dish to whip out, especially if you made the dressing ahead.  If you do make it ahead, you can restore the sauce to its original consistency by adding a little bit of warm water and mixing.  This fragrant dressing makes boiled vegetables taste like the fanciest salad ever!

So I present to you the recipes for Lombok-style marinated satay, sambal kecap and lotek, all 3 from the book Authentic Recipes from Indonesia by Heinz Von Holzen and Lother Asarna.

(serves 4-6)

-2lbs/1kg beef cubes

-lime wedges to serve

-2 recipes sambal kecap to serve (recipe follows)

-skewers (soaked in water for an hour if baking in the oven or grilling on charcoal)

Marinade:

-4 candlenuts/kemiri nuts (replace by cashews or boiled almonds)

-1 inch ginger, peeled and roughly sliced

-2 red lombok chillies (replace by one or two bird's eye chillies without the seeds)

-2-3 bird's eye chillies, without seeds

-5 garlic cloves

-1/2tsp terassi (dried shrimp paste), roasted in a piece of aluminum foil in a hot oven for 5-10 minutes

-1tsp salt

-2tbsp oil

-1cup coconut milk (thick if you can find it)

Grind all the marinade ingredients together in a paste with a food processor or mortar and pestle.  In a non-stick pan over medium heat, heat up the oil then add the paste and stir-fry for 5 minutes or until fragrant.  Add coconut milk, lower the heat to medium-low, and simmer for about ten minutes or until the marinade has thicken.  Let it cool then mix it well with the beef cubes and marinate in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

Skewer the meat and cook in a pan, in an oven or on a bbq, turning often and basting with the leftover marinade.  Serve with 2 recipes of sambal kecap.

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And the recipe for sambal kecap, a really simple, easy to prepare and tasty sauce/condiment!

-3-4 shallots, thinly sliced

-1 lombok chilli thinly sliced (or 1 or 2 bird's eye chillies, deseeded if desired)*

-2tbsp kecap manis (thick sweet soy sauce)

Mix everything together!

*Indonesian cuisine uses mainly red lombok chillies, which are about finger-length and less spicy than bird's eye chillies, but I have a really hard time finding them, especially the red ones that i might have seen only once in Indiatown last summer, so I usually use a smaller amount of bird's eye chillies.  You can deseed them if you want but we like a good amount of spice.  Also, even when bird's eye chillies are used, it's almost always the red ones, but I like the taste of the green ones, so I take the liberty to mix them, especially in this sambal kecap, it adds a little wow!

And to finish, a recipe for lotek. Lotek is a salad of blanched vegetables with a peanut dressing. From what I understood, Lotek's dressing is similar to gado-gado's, but with less ingredients.  For example, in many recipes that I saw (I mean like websites and books that contain recipes for both lotek and gado-gado), gado-gado's dressing has kaffir lime leaves but lotek's doesn't. Anyhow, except the selection of vegetables and toppings, I'm not very sure about the differences between these two salads.  I like both!

Dressing (grind all ingredients in a food processor or mortar):

-1/2cup roasted peanuts

-2cm kencur root, peeled (lesser galangal, probably can be substituted for galangal since it's such a small amount)

-2-3 bird's eye chillies, without seeds

-1/2tsp roasted terassi

-1tsp palm sugar

-1tsp salt

-2tbsp water (or more if it is too thick)

You can serve the dressing on a mix of these suggested vegetables:

-blanched water spinach, spinach, or any kind of greens

-blanched or steamed pumpkin, kabocha, sweet potato, or any kind of squash

-green beans or snake beans

-potatoes

-carrots

-bean sprouts

I guess you can inspire yourself from this recipe and do anything you want.  I also added kaffir lime leaves in my dressing because I love them.  You can make it simple like on these pictures, or make it really diverse and fancy!  You'll be surprised how good boiled potatoes and peanut sauce go well together!