Indonesia – Sate Lilit

by Fauzan Anandika

Bali one of an island in Indonesia, an island with million attraction. Beautiful beach, unique tradition, and delicious food. Balinese people were infamous for their creativity and culture. Where ever you looked at, you will see various traditional art on their building, cloth, and accessories. As for culinary, Balinese people have their style of cooking. Tourists can see Balinese cooking style like in Sate Lilit that has become one of the most popular dishes on the island.  

Instead of using bamboo or iron, Sate Lilit uses lemongrass to pierce sate meat. This cooking style makes Sate Lilit have a wonderful combination of delicious taste and flavorful smell in every bite. Sate Lilit’s gets its name from the words sate and lilit. The word means that the meat wraps a stick made of lemongrass then grill with Balinese spice.

Different from other kinds of sate that use beef or chicken, Sate Lilit uses pork or fish as their main ingredient. All of the meat must be chopped first and mix with shredded coconut, coconut milk, lime, shallot, and pepper.

Sate Lilit has a spicy, sweet, and savory taste. For the sauce, Sate Lilit not using peanut sauce. Sate Lilit uses a sauce made of shallot, garlic, lemongrass, and lime. Usually, Sate Lilit serve with a side of tuna and warm rice.

Not only serve as a meal, but Sate Lilit also becomes a part of Hinduism religious ceremony. One of the ceremonies is Caru, a ceremony held to maintain the world balance. In the Caru ceremony, Sate Lilit serve in odd numbers 3 or 5 stick. In a big ceremony, Sate Lilit made in the village hall, and all the cook is a male. In the past, making Sate Lilit was a masculine symbol for every male in the village.

Cooking Sate Lilit is quite simple since most of the ingredients can easily found in the local market or grocery store. In this recipe, I will describe how to cook Sate Lilit using chicken as the main ingredient. So let us start cooking now.

Ingredient

Sate Lilit

• 500-gram chicken fillet, chopped
• 2 tablespoon of vegetable oil
• 50 gram of shallot, finely chopped
• 20 grams of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 pieces of red chili, sliced
• 10 gram of ginger, finely chopped
• 10 gram of galangal, finely chopped
• 10 gram of kaempferia galanga, finely chopped
• 5 gram of turmeric, finely chopped
• ½ teaspoon of pepper powder
• 1 piece of cloves, grinded
• ½ teaspoon of nutmeg powder
• 1 teaspoon of coriander powder
• 2 gram of white sesame
• ½ teaspoon of pepper
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 12 stack of lemongrass
• 1 piece of lime leaves, thin sliced
• 30 gram of shredded coconut
• 12 stack of lemongrass for the sate

Sambal

• 5 pieces of shallot, thin sliced
• 1 piece of garlic, thin sliced
• 3 pieces of lemongrass, thin sliced
• 10 pieces of bird eyes chili, thin sliced
• 1 teaspoon of lime juice
• 2 sheet of lime leaves, thin sliced
• 1 cm of shrimp paste
• 1 tablespoon of coconut oil.

How to cook

Sambal

1. Place all the ingredients in a bowl.
2. Squish using a hand, and use a plastic glove to prevent the heat from the chili.

Sate Lilit

1. Prepare a frying pan, heat the vegetable oil.
2. Add shallot and garlic, fry until fragrant
3. Add red chili, ginger, galangal, turmeric, kaempferia galanga, pepper, cloves, salt, sesame, and lemongrass.
4. Cook the spice until fragrant.
5. Mix the spice with chopped chicken.
6. Blend the chicken and spice using a food processor.
7. Add shredded coconut and lime leaves.
8. Split the mixture into 12 ball shapes.
9. Wrap lemongrass with the mixture.
10. Grill Sate Lilit using charcoal until well cooked.
11. Sate Lilit ready to be served with a side of sambal and warm rice.