Recipe by Jodie Smith

Salted Chilli Macadamia Satay Sauce

Name: Salted Chilli Macadamia Satay Sauce
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 6

Serves6 people

Prep10 min

Cook10 min

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Nutworks Salted Chilli Macadamias SUP 75g

$8.75

Hand-packed and dispatched from our Corio, Victoria warehouse, with free delivery Australia-wide on orders over $100.

Two 75g pouches of macadamias blitzed with coconut milk, soy, lime and a spoon of chilli sauce. Makes about 400ml, enough for 6 with skewers. Prep 10 minutes, cook 10. It contains tree nuts and no peanuts.

Pouch of Nutworks Salted Chilli Macadamias 75g, the Australian macadamias blitzed into this satay sauce

Ingredients

Serves 6 with skewers, or 4 as a sauce for a rice bowl. Prep 10 minutes, cook 10. The coconut milk, soy, lime and aromatics are a supermarket shop. The macadamias are the part that decides how it tastes.

For the sauce
1 x 75g	pouch Nutworks Salted Chilli Macadamias
1 x 75g	pouch Nutworks Roast Salt Macadamias
1 tbsp	Kangaroo Island extra virgin olive oil, or a neutral oil
1	garlic clove, crushed
2cm	ginger, finely grated
250ml	coconut milk, from a 400ml tin, shaken first
1 tbsp	soy sauce, or tamari
1 tbsp	soft brown sugar or grated palm sugar
2 tsp	Ottolenghi Chilli Sauce, or to taste
1	lime, all the juice
3 to 4 tbsp	hot water, for loosening
To serve
12	chicken thigh, firm tofu or prawn skewers, grilled
1	cucumber, cut into thick half moons
1 handful	coriander leaves, and a few extra macadamias, roughly chopped

Allergens, and how hot to make it

This sauce contains tree nuts. It contains no peanuts, and it contains soy if you use soy sauce. Read the pack yourself before you cook for anyone with an allergy, because ingredients and manufacturing statements change and the pack in your hand is the only version that counts.

Two teaspoons of chilli sauce makes a sauce children will eat, given that the salted chilli pouch has already brought a low warmth of its own. Three teaspoons is where adults start to notice it. Add heat at the end rather than the start, because the sauce keeps getting hotter for the first ten minutes after it comes off the stove.

Macadamia is the better nut for this, and not for patriotic reasons

Satay sauce is an emulsion, and an emulsion needs fat. Macadamia is the fattiest nut in the cupboard by a clear margin, which is why it grinds to a cream where an almond grinds to a meal. Blitz macadamias long enough and they stop being pieces and become a smooth paste that takes coconut milk without splitting. They are also sweeter and less roasty than peanuts, so the sauce tastes rounder and lets the lime and chilli come forward instead of sitting behind a wall of roasted nut.

Using Nutworks Salted Chilli Macadamias for half the nuts does two jobs at once. The pouch is premium Australian macadamias lightly roasted and dusted with chilli and sea salt, so the seasoning you would otherwise be adding by hand is already on the nut and already even. The other half goes in as Nutworks Roast Salt Macadamias to keep the base clean. The rest of the Nutworks range is on the same shelf.

Nuts first, liquid second

The order is the whole recipe. Grind the nuts on their own until they clump and start to look oily, which takes about two minutes and passes through a stage where it looks like it has gone wrong. Only then add the liquid. Do it the other way around and the nuts hydrate before they release their oil, and you end up with a gritty sauce that no amount of extra blending will smooth out.

Method

Tip both pouches of macadamias into a food processor, holding back a small handful for scattering at the end.
Blitz for 2 minutes, stopping twice to scrape the sides down. The nuts will go from crumbs to a stiff clumpy mass to a loose, glossy paste. Wait for the third stage.
Warm the oil in a small saucepan over a low heat. Cook the garlic and ginger for 1 minute, until they smell sweet rather than raw. Do not let them colour.
Add the macadamia paste and stir it into the aromatics for 30 seconds.
Pour in the coconut milk a third at a time, stirring between each addition so the sauce stays smooth.
Add the soy sauce, the sugar and 2 teaspoons of the chilli sauce. Bring it to the barest simmer, with a bubble breaking every few seconds and no more.
Cook for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring often. It will thicken noticeably and the oil will start to show at the edges, which is the sign it is ready.
Take it off the heat and stir in the lime juice. Loosen with hot water a tablespoon at a time until it coats a spoon and drops off slowly.
Taste for salt, sugar, acid and heat in that order, adjust, then pour it over the skewers. Scatter the reserved macadamias, chopped, and the coriander, and put the cucumber alongside.

Make ahead, storage and what else it goes on

The sauce keeps five days in a sealed jar in the fridge and is easier to make the day before than on the night. It sets almost solid when cold, which is normal: warm it gently with two tablespoons of hot water and beat it back together. Never boil it hard to reheat, because the coconut fat splits out and will not go back in. It freezes for two months and comes back better than most sauces do, as long as you thaw it in the fridge overnight rather than in the microwave.

It is not only a skewer sauce. Thin it further with lime and water and it dresses a cold noodle salad. Spoon it over roast pumpkin or grilled broccolini. Use it as the sauce in a chicken and cabbage roll. If a jar is still sitting there on day five, stir a spoonful through a bowl of rice with a fried egg on top and call it lunch. For the wider case for the nut, our post on why macadamias do more than sit in a bowl covers the rest, and how to crack macadamia nuts is the one to read if you have been given a bag in the shell. The third pouch in the range, rosemary and sea salt macadamias, is a poor fit for this sauce and an excellent one for a grazing board.

Common questions

Can you make satay sauce with macadamias instead of peanuts?

Yes, and the swap is straight, gram for gram. Macadamias carry more fat than peanuts, so the sauce comes out creamier and needs a little more liquid to reach the same consistency. The flavour is sweeter and softer, with none of the toasted edge a peanut brings, so lift the lime and the chilli slightly to compensate. Roasted and salted nuts work better than raw ones here, because raw macadamias taste faintly milky in a savoury sauce.

How long does homemade satay sauce keep?

Five days in the fridge in a sealed container, or two months in the freezer. It thickens hard when chilled, so reheat it gently with a splash of hot water and stir it back to a pouring consistency. If it has been sitting out at room temperature on a summer table for more than two hours, do not put it back in the fridge.

Is macadamia satay sauce safe for a peanut allergy?

This recipe contains no peanuts, but a macadamia is a tree nut, so the sauce is not safe for anyone with a tree nut allergy and is not automatically safe for someone with a peanut allergy either. Some people react to both. Manufacturing statements about shared equipment matter as much as the ingredient list, so read the pack in front of you, and ask the person you are cooking for rather than deciding on their behalf. If there is any doubt, cook something else.

The macadamias sit with the rest of our snacking range and the chilli sauce with our sauces and mixes, both of which turn up again in festive entertaining essentials. Shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100.