Battersea Power Station visitors can embark on a journey through South East Asia at celebrASIA, a vibrant new festival which will take place at the iconic London landmark between 13-15 September.
From enjoying traditional delicacies from a wide range of renowned chefs, eateries, street food vendors and bars, to playing traditional childhood games, enjoying live performances and learning a new skill at the arts and crafts workshops, the festival will offer something for everybody. Throughout her career as a chef and food writer, Mandy Yin has always been passionate about introducing as many people to Malaysian food as possible, and she is continuing to do so as an ambassador for the event, where she will be serving this special dish, created in collaboration with Chick‘N’Sours. Of course, it tastes best cooked by Mandy herself, but we persuaded her to share the recipe, should you want to give it a try yourself!
To find out more about the event, visit batterseapowerstation.co.uk/events/celebrasia/
SERVES 4
INGREDIENTS
Satay spice paste
1 lemongrass stalk, roughly chopped | 600g onion, roughly chopped | 5 garlic cloves | 1 tsp ground coriander | 1 tsp chilli powder | 1 tsp ground turmeric | ½ tsp fennel seeds | ½ tsp ground cumin | 1 tbsp salt | 100g dark brown sugar
Peanut sauce
180g lightly salted peanuts, dry-toasted | 75g satay spice paste • 200ml coconut milk | 60g dark brown sugar | 2.½ tbsp tamarind paste | ¼ tsp chilli powder | 150ml water | 1.½ tsp salt (or less), to taste
Cucumber pickles
2 cucumbers | 400g red onions | Pickling liquid: 350ml water | 1 star anise | 2.cm ginger, sliced lengthways into 3 or 4 pieces | 125g white sugar | 75ml white rice vinegar | 1.½ tsp salt
Tomato sambal
150g fresh red chillies | 3 garlic cloves | 60ml vegetable oil | tbsp tomato puree | 1½ tsp table salt | 4.½ tbsp dark brown sugar | 80ml water
Chicken satay patties
500g boneless skinless chicken thigh, minced in a food processor | 75g satay spice paste | 1 egg, beaten | oil, for frying | 4 good-quality burger buns
METHOD
Satay spice paste
Blend the ingredients until they have a fine purée consistency, working in batches if necessary. Always mix lemongrass with some onion to provide easier fodder for your blender’s blades (blitzing lemongrass by itself can be very hard work and you will be left with undesirable hard fibrous strands).
Peanut sauce
Grind the peanuts using the pulse function of a food processor until you get a rough, sandy texture. Add, along with the rest of the sauce ingredients, to a medium-sized pan. Set over a medium heat and bring to boil, stirring frequently to prevent the sauce from burning. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes until the sauce thickens.
Cucumber pickles
Bring the pickling liquid ingredients to a boil, then turn off the heat. Remove the ginger and star anise from the liquid. Cut the cucumbers in half, and then halve again lengthways. Use a spoon to deseed them and finely slice so that you end up with crescent moon shapes, ideally no thicker than 5mm.
Cut the red onion into eighths, then slice them so that you also end up with crescent moon shapes, ideally no thicker than 5mm in width. Mix the cucumber and red onion thoroughly in a large bowl before decanting into a storage container. Pour pickling liquid over the prepared vegetables and leave, at least overnight, before draining well.
Tomato sambal
Blitz the chillies, garlic and oil into a fine puree using a handheld stick blender. Heat up the oil in a small non-stick saucepan on medium heat. Stir-fry the chilli garlic mix for 8 minutes. Add the tomato puree, salt, sugar and water. Stir-fry for 2 minutes. Once cool, decant into a clean glass jar to store.
Chicken satay patties
Using a gloved hand, mix the chicken mince thoroughly with the satay spice paste and egg in a large container. Leave to marinate in the fridge for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. Place a large frying pan over a medium-high heat, adding just enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Using a large ice-cream scoop, place two balls of the chicken mix into the pan and flatten into patties using a flat spatula. Pan-fry the patties on both sides for around 8 minutes in total, flipping every couple of minutes.
Assembling the burger
Cut the buns in half and toast, cut-side down. Then add the toppings to the bun base in this order:
1. peanut sauce (enough to cover the base of the bun)
2. cooked chicken patty
3. 2 tbsp cucumber pickles
4. 1 tbsp tomato sambal (or more, to taste)
5. top of bun. Serve alongside chips if desired. Enjoy!
Note: You can easily double up the quantity of peanut sauce and marinaded chicken mix if you want to make 8 burgers instead of 4, as this recipe makes plenty of satay spice mix. Any leftover spice mix can be frozen in small batches so that you can easily make up more satay burgers in a flash next time!
