‘Kuah Kacang’ – pronounced as ‘Ku-aa Ka-cha-ng’ is a sweet and sour Malaysian version of Peanut sauce. Yum!!! It will leave such a signature taste in your mouth that you simply cannot resist from saying – some more!!!
This dish is not just easy to prepare but great to taste too. It can be refrigerated and consumed for a week.
Just to bring in the fusion well, I tried this dish on a weekend with the traditional South Canara breakfast – Neer Dose. And it was a bumper hit with my family. My husband loved it so much that whenever guests come home, he requests me to add this fusion combo in the list!!! Without a miss, all our guests have loved it to the core.
This simple dish gets its unique taste from the coarsely ground roasted peanuts, the red chillies, the sweeteners added and lemon grass. In Malaysia, this dish is prepared by different people in different ways. I too have done my bit of the customization and trust me, it tastes heavenly.
So, why don’t we try this recipe?
Main Ingredients:
Peanuts: 1 cup
Red chillies : 5
Onions / Shallots (Chopped): 1 cup (3 to 4)
Garlic: About 4 pods
Ginger: About ½ inch
Lemon grass stem (Chopped): 3 tbsp. (2 stalks)
Palm sugar / jaggery: 2 tbsp.
Tamarind: 1 tbsp.
Method:
Quick Video Recipe :
- In a wide-mouthed pan roast the peanuts. Remove the pan from heat. Let it cool. Roughly deskin the roasted peanuts
- Coarsely powder the de-skinned peanuts and keep aside
- Grind the chopped onions to a smooth paste and keep aside
- In a blender, put together the chopped lemon grass stem, red chillies, garlic and ginger and blend to a smooth paste. Keep aside
- In a wide-mouthed pan, heat little oil and fry the onion paste until we get rid of the raw onion smell
- To the above, add the lemon grass – red chillies paste and mix well. Add little water and let it cook for a few minutes
- Now, add the roasted peanut powder (coarsely ground), palm sugar (or jaggery), tamarind paste / pulp and salt (as per the taste). Mix well
- Cook for a few minutes. Serve it hot with rice or chapathi or any kind of bread or dose. I tried this with all and loved it the most with ‘Neer dose’
Note :
- This is a unique dish which is sweet, tangy and spicy with nutty flavor and unique fragrance of the lemon grass. It is a very easy dish, but it is very important to add the ingredients in the adequate quantity to get the perfect lip-smacking taste
- It is very important to ensure that the peanuts are not ground to a smooth powder, but to a coarsely ground mixture for the dish to taste perfectly
- I normally do suggest to increase the red chilli input if you require the dish to be more spicier, as my dishes are medium or low on spices, but here, I would rather not suggest the same as the dish tastes the best when it has optimum input of all the ingredients
Peanut sauce stories :
Peanuts and me?!!! Phew!!! Given a chance, I can have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner!!!
In Germany, I found a couple of very good friends from Malaysia. As part of getting to know each other, we organized a Potluck where each of us brought a local cuisine. One of my friends had cooked this dish which I instantly fell in love with. I had it to my heart’s content and that was not enough. I quickly noted down the recipe and on my way back home grabbed all the ingredients required and prepared it for dinner that night!!! That same morning, I had coincidentally prepared ‘Neer Dose’ batter and thought, why not try this once with ‘Neer Dose’ and as it turned out, it was a super – duper hit.
Sooperb.. Looks tangy too..