Cooking in
British Columbia
Thai · Thailand
Nam Jim Satay (Thai Peanut Sauce)
The peanut sauce served with satay — a preparation of red curry paste fried in coconut cream, combined with roasted peanuts ground to a rough paste, coconut milk, tamarind water, palm sugar, and fish sauce. Thai peanut sauce (different from Indonesian kacang sauce in its use of red curry paste and coconut milk as the base) is a complete flavour exercise: the peanut's fat and protein provide richness and depth; the red curry paste's aromatics provide the Thai character; the tamarind and palm sugar provide the sweet-sour balance. It is not a dipping sauce but a sauce of complexity in its own right.
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I
The Market List
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150 g
raw peanuts
dry-roasted in a pan to deep gold, then roughly ground in a food processor or mortar — visible texture, not smooth
Your own market
60 ml
coconut cream
a small amount, for cracking and frying the paste
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
2 tbsp
red curry paste
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
200 ml
coconut milk
thin, added after the paste and peanut are combined
Origin · Sri Lankan coconut (Coconut Research Institute of Sri Lanka), Sri LankaChoose your town to see who stocks it →
2 tbsp
tamarind water
adjusted to balance
Your own market
1 tbsp
1 tbsp
fish sauce
adjusted to balance
Your own market
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II
The Method
1
Place raw peanuts in a dry pan over moderate heat and roast, stirring frequently, until they reach a deep gold — deeper than a garnish roast, with a developed, slightly bitter-caramel note — because that bitterness is what keeps the finished sauce from tasting flat and sweet once the coconut milk and sugar are in. Remove and allow to cool. Grind in a food processor or mortar to a rough paste, stopping when no whole peanuts remain but the mass is still coarse and irregular, so the sauce retains body and chew rather than dissolving into smoothness.
From the canon — Fresh coconut milk — extracted from freshly grated coconut flesh rather than purchased in a can — and the technique of 'cracking' it: heating the thick, fat-… Coconut Milk: Cracking, Frying, Reducing →
2
Place the coconut cream in a wok or saucepan over medium heat and cook until it cracks — the fat separates, the surface shimmers and pools — because the freed fat is what carries and toasts the curry paste rather than simply boiling it. Add the red curry paste and fry for 2 minutes, stirring it constantly into the cracked cream until it smells aromatic and cooked rather than raw.
From the canon — The making of a Thai curry paste in a granite mortar — the sequential pounding of aromatics from hardest and driest to most moist, each added only when the p… Curry Paste: Pounding Technique (Khreuang Gaeng) →
3
Add the ground roasted peanut paste to the fried curry paste and stir until fully combined, then pour in the thin coconut milk so the peanut paste loosens gradually and does not seize into lumps. Simmer gently for 5 minutes, stirring to prevent the peanut from catching on the base, until the sauce has cohered into a single body and the raw coconut milk smell has cooked off.
4
This is where the dish lives or dies. Add the tamarind water, palm sugar, and fish sauce, then taste and adjust each element in turn against the others, because the four notes — the peanut's roasted-fat richness, the curry paste's aromatic heat, the sweet-sour of palm sugar and tamarind, and the fish sauce's savoury background — must arrive in that sequence on the palate simultaneously rather than any one riding over the rest. A sauce that reads only as rich and sweet is under-acidified; add more tamarind until the tartness just cuts through the richness without announcing itself.
From the canon — Palm sugar — made from the sap of the palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer) or coconut palm — is the primary sweetener of the Thai kitchen and one of the most … Palm Sugar (Nam Tan Pip): Selection and Use →
5
Check consistency by lifting a spoon from the sauce and tilting it: the sauce should coat the back and flow slowly, not run, so it will cling to a piece of satay rather than sliding straight off. If too thin, continue simmering to reduce; if too thick, add coconut milk in small increments until the texture is cloaking but still pourable.
III
Quality Hierarchy
01
Reserve — Freshly made red curry paste, ground by mortar from whole dried chillies, galangal, lemongrass, and aromatics. Mature coconut, cracked for cream by hand. Artisan tamarind pulp dissolved in warm water. Thai palm sugar, unrefined, from a local market. The depth of each element is unmistakable.
02
Estate — High-quality commercial red curry paste with a short, clean ingredient list. Good-quality coconut cream with a high fat content. Block tamarind dissolved fresh. Unrefined palm sugar in cakes.
03
Market — Reliable commercial red curry paste. Tinned coconut milk used for both the cream and the thin milk stages. Tamarind concentrate, used in smaller quantity. Soft palm sugar or light brown sugar as a substitute.
04
House — Any commercial red curry paste and coconut milk. Tamarind concentrate. White sugar in place of palm sugar. The four-flavour balance remains achievable; the aromatic complexity of the curry paste layer is diminished.
IV
Sensory Tests
◇Sight. The sauce coats a spoon and flows slowly when tilted — neither running freely nor sitting as a stiff paste.
◇Smell. After frying the red curry paste in cracked coconut cream, the smell shifts from raw and sharp to aromatic and cooked — the signal to add the ground peanut.
◇Touch. The ground peanut paste, tested between finger and thumb, is coarse and granular — no whole peanuts remain, but the mass is far from smooth.
◇Where it lives or dies. The four-flavour calibration — specifically the tamarind acid against the peanut's combined fat richness and the coconut cream — determines whether the sauce achieves complexity or collapses into sweetness.
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