singapore satay

Our UK friend in Yokohama, Andy (who's also the godfather of our first son), loves to cook and eat and having grown up in Bangladesh is a bit of a curry connoisseur. He also visits Singapore regularly and we recently got a spice packet in the mail from Yokohama. Yummers! I can't get some of those special spices here (tamarind, lemongrass, blue ginger, etc.) so it was nice to have it all in one box. Thanks, Andy-blokey!

And man, it was heavenly stuff. Peanut sauce you just want to dip your finger in and slurp just as it is (and of course I have absolutely no experience of that whatsoever - as if! - I'm totally mannered).

You marinate the chicken overnight so it gets really tender, and I always soak my bamboo skewers in water for a while before I grill them--they still get black but they don't ignite. Phew.

Because we live in a second-floor apartment we don't have an outside grill (the tiny balcony is all about laundry drying), but we have a little grill under our stove that I use for just such occasions as this.

I served the chicken and sauce with some cukes and maters, and with some coriander rice from Soy and Pepper's arsenal of awesomeness. You first cook the rice in chicken stock. I don't have access to fresh coriander so I used powdered, but I did use some really perky spring onions and it was pretty delish with the chicken. Mmmmm.