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.
**The peanuts:** - Raw peanuts: dry-roasted in a pan until deep gold (longer than for a garnish — the peanuts in the sauce are more deeply roasted, for a more developed, slightly bitter-caramel note). - Ground roughly in a food processor or mortar — to a rough paste with visible texture, not a smooth peanut butter consistency. The texture of the ground roasted peanut is one of the sauce's defining characteristics. **The preparation:** 1. Crack a small amount of coconut cream (Entry TH-03). Add 2 tablespoons of red curry paste (Entry TH-04). Fry for 2 minutes. 2. Add the ground roasted peanut paste. Stir together with the fried paste. 3. Add thin coconut milk, approximately 200ml. 4. Simmer gently for 5 minutes. 5. Add tamarind water, palm sugar, fish sauce. 6. Adjust four-flavour balance (Entry TH-02). The sauce should taste simultaneously: nutty-rich (peanut), aromatic-complex (red curry paste), sweet-sour (palm sugar-tamarind), and salty (fish sauce). No single note should dominate. 7. Consistency: thick enough to coat a piece of satay without running off, but pourable from a spoon. Decisive moment: The four-flavour balance — specifically the tamarind-palm sugar calibration against the peanut's richness. The peanut sauce has a higher inherent fat content than a standard curry — the fat of the roasted peanut combined with the coconut cream. This fat content requires a higher proportion of tamarind acid to cut through the richness. A peanut sauce that tastes only rich and sweet is under-acidified; a peanut sauce that tastes sharp over its richness is correctly balanced. Sensory tests: **Sight — consistency:** The sauce should coat a spoon and flow slowly when tilted. Too thin: insufficient peanut ground into the sauce or too much coconut milk. Too thick: insufficient coconut milk. **Taste:** The complexity progression: first taste — the peanut's roasted-fat richness. Mid-palate — the red curry paste's aromatic depth and heat. Following — the sweet-sour of palm sugar and tamarind, cutting through the richness. Background throughout — the fish sauce's savoury depth.
David Thompson, *Thai Food* (2002); *Thai Street Food* (2010)