Pok Pok Thai Peanut Sauce (Naam Jim Sateh)

A Thai Recipe from Chef Andy Ricker's New Pok Pok Cookbook, Satay Part 2 of 3

Chef Andy RickerThis is the second part of Chef Andy's recipe for Muu Sateh: Thai Peanut Sauce, from his new Pok Pok Cookbook

To make the complementary dishes to go with the peanut sauce see parts one and two of the Pok Pok recipes for Pork Satay (Muu Sateh) and Cucumber Salad (Ajaat).

Let us do all the shopping for you! We've worked with Chef Ricker to create a kit with the essential ingredients you'll need for making Pok Pok Muu Sateh.

Pok Pok Peanut Sauce  

Peanut Sauce for Satay Recipe (Naam Jim Sateh)

Paste Ingredients

  • 4 grams dried puya chiles (about 2), stemmed but not seeded
  • 2 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 1 ounce thinly sliced lemongrass (tender parts only)
  • 1 (21 gram) piece peeled fresh or frozen (not defrosted) galangal, thinly sliced against the grain
  • 1 (21 gram) piece peeled fresh or frozen (not defrosted) yellow turmeric root, thinly sliced against the grain
  • 1 ounce peeled garlic cloves, halved lengthwise
  • 1 1/4 ounces peeled Asian shallots, thinly sliced against the grain

Sauce Ingredients

Make the Paste

  1. Combine the dried chiles and salt in the mortar and pound firmly, scraping the mortar and stirring the mixture occasionally, until you have a fairly fine powder, about 3 minutes. Add the lemongrass and pound, occasionally stopping to scrape down the sides of the mortar, until you have a fairly smooth, slightly fibrous paste, about 2 minutes. Do the same with the galangal, then the turmeric, then the garlic, and then the shallots, fully pounding each ingredient before moving on to the next.
  2. You’ll have about 1/2 cup of paste. You can use it right away, or store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week or in the freezer for up to 6 months. You’ll need 6 tablespoons of the paste for 3 1/2 cups of peanut sauce (you can freeze the leftover paste for a mini-batch of peanut sauce).

Make the Sauce

  1. Process the peanuts in a food processor (or pound in a mortar) until they look like very chunky, slightly dry peanut butter.
  2. Pour 1/2 cup of the coconut cream in a medium pot or a wok and set it over high heat. Bring the cream to a boil, stirring often, then decrease the heat to maintain a steady simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the cream has reduced by about half and “breaks”—it’ll look like curdled milk—anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes, depending on the brand of coconut cream. What you’re doing as you simmer is cooking off the water in the cream so you’re left with some white-ish solids but primarily the translucent fat, which you’ll use to fry the curry paste. Patience is essential here. (If for some reason it doesn’t crack after 10 minutes, add a tablespoon of vegetable oil, but know that the sauce will be oilier than it should be.)
  3. Decrease the heat to medium-low, add 6 tablespoons of the paste, and cook, breaking it up a bit at first, then stirring often, until it’s very fragrant and the garlic and shallots in the paste no longer smell raw, about 3 minutes. Add the palm sugar and cook, breaking up the palm sugar and stirring often, until the palm sugar is completely melted, about 2 minutes. Add the remaining coconut cream and the coconut milk, increase the heat to medium-high, and let the mixture come to a simmer. Add the peanuts and tamarind water, adjust the heat to maintain a gentle simmer (don’t let it boil), and cook until the sauce has thickened slightly and the flavor has concentrated, about 8 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the sauce sit until it has cooled to room temperature. It’ll thicken further as it cools. Season to taste with salt.
  4. Use it right away and store any extra in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.

Serves 4.

See the other parts of this recipe: Thai Pork Satay (Muu Sateh) and Cucumber Salad (Ajaat) to follow the other parts of this Pok Pok recipe.

Image of Andy Ricker By Takeaway (Own work) CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Pok Pok Cookbook  
Pok Pok: Food and Stories from the Streets, Homes, and Roadside Restaurants of Thailand

Pok Pok: Food & Stories from the Streets, Homes, & Roadside Restaurants of Thailand

The Pok Pok Cookbook is available at Portland's finest independent bookstore, Powell's Books and wherever books are sold. Pre-order now, shipping after October 29, 2013. Order 2 copies for free shipping from Powell's, see their site for details!

Authors: Andy Ricker with JJ Goode

Recipe & Image Copyright © 2013 Pok Pok: Food and Stories from the Streets, Homes, and Roadside Restaurants of Thailand; Images and Recipes are used with permission; published by Ten Speed Press; ISBN 9781607742883