New Asian Cuisine
Welcoming Fall with Fast, Simple Asian Recipes
Chicken Satay
By Jaden Hair, Steamy Kitchen
Classic Indonesian Fried Rice
By Wendy Hutton, Southeast Asia’s Best
Recipes, From Bangkok to Bali

If you’ve never used rice vinegar before, it’s one of
my must-have pantry items for Asian foods. Look
for “rice vinegar” on the label – it’s easy to
confuse it with “rice wine,” but they are very
different products. One is a tangy vinegar, and the
other is cooking wine.
There are two kinds of rice vinegar: regular and
seasoned (or sweetened). You can use either in this
recipe, but I prefer the regular, since we’re using

Fried rice is a common breakfast throughout Indonesia. It is
often very simple—cooked rice tossed with a seasoning
paste of chili and a dash of sweet soy sauce—or can be
more substantial, like this recipe, which adds beef instead of
the pork often used in non-Muslim parts of Southeast Asia.
You could also add some shrimp and top each serving with
a fried egg (which the Indonesians call a “bull’s-eye egg”).
This is a quickly made lunch or supper dish.

Serves 4
Preparation time: 10 mins
Cooking time: 10 mins
1/3 cup (85 ml) oil
7 oz (200 g) sirloin or rump steak, thinly sliced across the grain, shredded
7 oz (200 g) small fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined, or add another 7 oz (200 g) beef
6 cups (800 g) cold cooked rice, stirred with a fork to separate the grains
2 tablespoons sweet soy sauce
1 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
2 tablespoons crisp-fried shallots
1 green onion (scallion), minced
1 large ripe tomato, sliced
Seasoning Paste
6 shallots, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2–3 red finger-length chilies, sliced
Prepare the Seasoning Paste by processing all the ingredients together to a coarse paste.
Heat 1/4 cup (60 ml) of the oil in a wok and add the Seasoning Paste. Stir-fry over medium heat until
softened and fragrant, about 4 minutes. Increase the heat, add the beef and shrimp, if using, and stir-fry
until cooked, about 3 minutes. Add the rice and stir-fry over high heat for 1 minute. Sprinkle with the
sweet soy sauce and salt and stir-fry for another minute.
Transfer the rice to a large bowl and keep warm. Use the remaining oil to fry the eggs, one at a time, in the
wok, or cook them all at one time in a skillet. Transfer the rice to four plates. Top each serving with a fried
egg and garnish with the crisp-fried shallots and green onion. Add a few tomato slices and serve with a chili
sambal.
Note: As with all fried rice dishes, it is preferable to use rice that was cooked the previous day, so that it
has completely dried out.
brown sugar in the marinade. You’ll have to read the label carefully or just look for the color differences on
the label. Mitsukan (a client of mine) uses BLUE for unsweetened or regular rice vinegar and RED for
sweetened or seasoned.
And as for the peanut butter – chunky or smooth, it’s up to you!
Start by slicing your chicken into long, thin strips. You can use either chicken breast or thighs (I prefer
dark meat, but it’s totally up to you!). Try to get the chicken strips all similar in thickness (uh, actually
thinness) so that they’ll cook evenly.
Chicken Satay Recipe
Servings: 6
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Optional: Include a spoonful of your favorite Asian chili sauce (or even a few dashes of sriracha or
Tabasco)
Ingredients:
2 pounds boneless chicken breast or thigh
1-2 garlic cloves, finely minced
1 teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon rice vinegar (I prefer Mitsukan)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 cup dry roasted peanuts, chopped
bamboo skewers, soaked in water
Directions:
1. In a large bowl, combine the garlic, ginger, rice vinegar, soy sauce, brown sugar, peanut butter and
sesame oil. Set the marinade aside.
2. Slice the chicken breasts into long, thin strips. Add the chicken strips to the marinade and mix well.
Refrigerate 1 hour or for up to overnight.
3. When ready to cook, preheat the grill – high heat on one side and low heat on the other side. Thread the
chicken strips onto the bamboo skewers, keeping the chicken as flat as you can so that they cook evenly.
Grill the chicken skewers, starting on the high heat side for 4 minutes each side. The move the skewers to
the low heat side, cover and finish cooking, about 1-3 minutes more, depending on the thickness of your
chicken.
4. Serve with chopped roasted peanuts sprinkled on top.