Sate Taichan: Jakarta's White Chicken Sate

Ingredients

• 600 g boneless chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized cubes for skewering
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp lime juice, freshly squeezed
• For the sambal
• 10 red bird's-eye chillies, roughly chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp lime juice, freshly squeezed
• To serve
• 2 limes, halved
• as needed bamboo skewers, soaked in cold water for 30 minutes

Method

1. 1
   Soak the bamboo skewers in cold water for 30 minutes. Season the chicken cubes with salt and lime juice. Thread the cubes onto the skewers, packing them snugly. The marinade here is salt and lime only — kecap manis is deliberately absent; this is the defining act of the dish.
2. 2
   Pound or blend the bird's-eye chillies and garlic to a coarse paste. Season with salt and lime juice. Taste: the sambal must be fiercely hot and sharply acidic — it carries the full flavour burden that kecap manis would otherwise provide. This is where the dish lives or dies: a sambal that is timid or under-seasoned leaves the white chicken with nothing to meet.
3. 3
   Grill the skewers over a hot charcoal fire or a high-heat grill, turning frequently. Cook until the chicken is cooked through and the exterior shows light char marks while the flesh remains visibly pale — white, not brown. The absence of any basting sauce means the surface dries and chars cleanly; the correct result is opaque flesh with golden-edged char, never a dark glaze.
4. 4
   Serve the skewers immediately alongside the sambal and lime halves. The diner squeezes lime over the chicken at the table.