Simple peanut sauce II

Most of the time I make peanut sauce the same way as my grandmother did. I must say I love our family peanut sauce recipe, but now I discovered Beb Vuyk’s chapter about sauces and I’m surprised. So many great and easy recipes. Most of the time so much easier than I’m used to. Like this simple peanut sauce with tamarind and sweet soy sauce. Enak!

The peanut sauce is made and served cold. It’s enough for 4 people. You can use it as a sauce over sateh or as a dipping sauce for vegetables. Ready in 10 minutes.

I use half a peanut butter jar. That is about 175 grams of peanut butter.

Simple peanut sauce II #469 translated from Beb Vuyk Groot Indonesisch kookboek, page 379.

Ingredients

1/2 jar of peanut butter
3 tablespoons of chopped onions
1 chopped garlic clove
1 teaspoon of sambal oelek
1 tablespoon of sweet soy sauce
1 tablespoon of kitchen tamarind
1 tablespoon of vinegar
salt
water

Rub onions, garlic and sambal together into a paste and mix in the mortar peanut butter, tamarind, soy sauce, vinegar, salt and water.

Who owns a blender or mixer, rub in first onion, garlic and sambal. Add the peanut butter and finish the sauce as described in recipe 468.

Recipe 468 states:

(…) Place peanut butter and sambal in a bowl. Turn on the mixer and add water spoon for spoon (otherwise it will splash). Add soy sauce, vinegar and tamarind. Taste if your sauce needs some more vinegar or salt. The sauce should have the consistency of salad dressing.

I crush the onion, garlic, and sambal in the cobek (mortar). It seems very convenient to use the mixer. I’ve never done that before with a peanut sauce. As you can see I place peanut butter, soy sauce and tamarind sauce and a teaspoon of salt in a big bowl. Then I mix it and add water spoon by spoon. I mix in the content of the cobek as well. The sauce is as thick as salad dressing now. Done!

The fresh garlic gives it lots of flavor and the little bit of sambal ulek gives depth to the taste. Peanut sauce without some acidity is just plain so the combination of tamarind and vinegar is lovely. If you do not have tamarind, you can use extra vinegar. I use tamarind paste from a jar. I buy it at the supermarket or in an Asian shop. I also use my favorite ketjap (kecap) with this peanut sauce. Kecap Manis ABC. That is syrupy sweet, so delicious.

Beb Vuyk, best known for her Groot Indonesisch Kookboek (Great Indonesian Cook Book), was much more than a great cook. She belongs to the most important Dutch-Indonesian (Indo) writers and journalists of her time. Check this out.