Sate Lilit Bali (Minced Meat Satay)-Ground meat is wrapped around lemongrass skewers, grilled to perfection and served with spicy kecap chili sauce.
Sate lilit is a popular dish from the Island of Bali. The word “lilit” roughly means “wrap around”. The meat is usually wrapped around the skewers. Traditionally, lemongrass stalks are used as skewers instead of bamboo skewers. I really think using lemongrass stalk as skewers makes sate lilit taste even better 🙂 I love the aromatic lemongrass and when you grill it, it imparts that great aroma to the meat. Love it! The choice of meat is also really flexible. People use minced chicken, fish, pork, beef, duck, etc to make sate lilit.
If you look at the list of the ground spices ingredients, chances are you probably not going to give this sate lilit a try. Indonesian cooking does use lots of fresh spices and yes, some of the spices can be difficult to find, for example kencur/Kaempferia galanga. Not every Asian store will carry this spices. It is not very commonly used in other Southeast Asian countries too besides Indonesia. It can be substituted with half galangal (which can be easily found in Asian store) and half ginger. It’s not perfect, but it’s the closest you can get. The main bulk of the work is probably finding spices. Once you have everything, the food processor will do the work for you 🙂 Give these a try and you might find yourself enjoying them 😉 We did ! My daughter loved them !
Sate Lilit Bali (Minced Meat Satay)
Ingredients
- 1 ½ lbs minced duck or chicken meat
- 2 cups grated unsweetened coconut
- 2 oz gula jawa / Indonesian palm sugar (finely chopped)
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 Tbsp cooking oil (and extra for brushing)
- About 10 stalks of lemongrass or 20 bamboo skewers
Ground spices:
- 5 shallots (peeled)
- 7 cloves garlic (peeled)
- 1- inch galangal (peeled) or use 2 teaspoons galangal powder
- 1- inch kencur/Kaempferia galanga (peeled) or substitute with 1/2 galangal and 1/2 ginger if you must or use 1/2 tsp kencur powder
- 2- inch turmeric (peeled) or use 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
- 2 tsp coriander seeds
- 5 candlenuts/kemiri sub with macadamia nuts or omit if you must
- 1 tsp shrimp paste/ belacan
- 4 kaffir lime leaves Cut off the tough vein in the middle
- ½ lemongrass stalk cut into 1-inch piece
- 2 cloves
- 5 Thai red chilis remove stems (optional)
- ⅛ tsp grated nutmeg
Sauce:
- 4-5 red chili (seeded and finely chopped)
- ¼ cup kecap manis / Indonesian sweet soy sauce
- ¼ cup fried shallot crisps/ bawang goreng
Instructions
Things to prepare before:
- Mix all ingredients for the chili sauce. Cover and keep in the refrigerator if making ahead
- If you use bamboo skewers, soak the bamboo skewers in water for at least 1 hour. If you use lemongrass as skewers, cut the stalks into half and get rid of extra layers if necessary
Prepare the meat:
- Place all the ground spices ingredients in a food processor and process into a paste. Add a bit of water to help it going
- Preheat 3 Tbsp of oil in a wok or skillet. Add in the ground spices and saute until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Remove from the wok or skillet and let it cool down completely
- In a large mixing bowl, mix the meat with the spice paste above, coconut, palm sugar, and salt. They should come together nicely without falling apart
- With clean hands, scoop up about 2-3 Tbsp of the meat mixture and mold it onto the bamboo or lemongrass skewers. Repeat until you are done with the meat and skewers
To cook on a grill:
- Preheat the grill. Brush the sate with a bit of oil and grill the sate until cooked and golden brown all over, about 2-3 minutes or longer on each side. You can also use a grill pan for this purpose. Serve with the sauce
To bake in the oven:
- Preheat oven to 375 F. Line the baking sheet with aluminum foil. Place the sate on the baking sheet and brush with a bit of oil and bake about 8-10 minutes on one side and then flip over and brush with a bit oil and bake for another 5-8 minutes or until cooked through. Serve with the sauce
12 comments
Awesome pictures! Do you know how to convert the measurements to dried/ground spices? I have ground kencur, dried galangal etc.
For the sauce, should all ingredients be mixed together or is there any special preparation?
Hi, I have included the ground spices substitution. For the sauce, yes it’t pretty much just a chopped chili mix with soy sauce and fried shallots. No cooking is needed. I hope these help!
Hi! This recipe looks good! Have yet to try because I have no grill at home 🙁 do you have any suggestions on other cooking methods? Like for example, could I air fry this? Or use pan?
Thank you!
P.S. I tried to make Soto Medan based on your recipe and it tasted so good!😭 I miss indo food so much and can’t fly back due to the pandemic. Also, hi fellow Medanese! 🙂
Hi Peggy, I’m happy to know another Medanese 🙂 you can definitely air fry this or bake in the oven. I haven’t tried air frying, but it should work too because it’s like an oven. I have baked sate in the oven. Preheat oven to 375 F. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Place the satay about 1 inch apart. Brush with some cooking oil bake for 10 minutes on each side, turn over and brush with some oil and bake for another 10 minutes. After that turn off the oven and turn on the broiler on low and let the satay broiled until it has nice golden brown. You can use pan too, pan grilling will work as well.
This looks awesome! I am going to make a test run this Thursday and I only have one question: when you say, “red chilis”, would I be correct to assume you mean thai/bird’s chilis?
Hi Mike,
Yes, it’s thai chilis 🙂 You can tone down on the amount if you want too.
Hi, I am really happy with my first SATE LILI BALI! I am not sure what do you eat it with. What is thie name of that yellow rice in your photo? May I haVe that recipe too, please? By The way what do I do with The sauce? Do you use it after The SATÉ are ready? Or do you use it while grilling the meat? Please forgive me but I am really a first time at eating and cooking this. I am already proud of me to have found ALL ingredients. 😉💃🏿 Looking forward to your reply. Thank Y😋U!
Hi Lia,
I’m so happy you like the sate lilit. You can eat it with regular white rice, the yellow rice (nasi kuning) in the photo is pretty tasty too. You can find the recipe here: https://whattocooktoday.com/nasi-kuning.html The sauce is to be served with the sate lilit once you are ready to eat them. Don’t use them to grill the meat. I hope I answered your questions and you should be very proud of yourself indeed 🙂 Thank you so much for letting me know too 🙂 Cheers.
Ah, lemongrass sate skewers are one of my favourite things ever! And that list of ingredients is getting me really excited! I have – or have access to – everything except for the kencur so I will probably me making this real soon. Beautiful photos as always Marvellina.
Thank you James. You can skip the kencur if you don’t have any. It won’t be a deal breaker at all 🙂 Thank you for your kind words always
This looks amazing! Reminds me of the Vietnamese shrimp one skewered with sugar cane! I’m always amazed and your recipes and I love that you use all these cool ingredients! I need to try to make this! The only thing I’m missing is kencur/Kaempferia galanga which I’m pretty sure I have seen in the store but I had no idea what it was! So many times of ‘galangal/gingers’! 🙂 Oh and i need to find some candle nuts. Your photos are AMAZING and I kid you not, I think I’m going to be in happy land for a very long time while I eat through your blog. 🙂
I love the Vietnamese shrimp on sugar cane too. Sadly to say that I can’t find any kencur here. It’s one of those difficult to find ingredients but used often in Indonesian cooking. Candlenuts can be substituted with macademia nuts if you can’t find any. I haven’t seen any where I am here. Thank you so much for your kind words always Joyce. You are too kind and humble. You do an amazing job yourself with your blog, food and everything! Cheers