Picnic Food : Chicken Satay, sushi and banana cake!

I made satay sauce using Ina Garten's recipe yesterday.And it tastes quite like the real thing I had in Sabah. Isn't this ironic? Learning my own country's food from a foreigner? Considering the sauce is made from scratch, Ina Garten's version is really quite authetic.

Satay Sauce (makes 1.5 cups)

[A]:
1 tbsp good olive oil
1 tbsp dark sesame oil
2/3 cup small diced red onion (1 small onion)
1.5 tsp minced garlic (2 cloves)
1.5 tsp minced fresh ginger root
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
[B]:
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/4 cup ketchup
2 tbsp dry sherry
1.5 tsp freshly squeezed lime juice

Cook [A] in a small pan on medium heat until onion is transparent. Whisk in [B] and cook for 1 min. Cool and use as a dip for the chicken. This can be kept in refrigerator for a month.

When I excitedly present the sauce to OCT, he said it was not as good as the Singapore's version. Well, what can I say? An American's recipe + Malaysian's interpretation is not going to taste anything like Singapore Satay! We then spent some time arguing which country has better satay...quite pointless actually.

My point is, the satay sauce I made, taste like the Malaysia's version. And I am happy about it! I put the chicken strips that I marinated overnight under broiler just now, and this is what I get:

Nothing close to the BBQ version, but better than none for the time being, until we go back Malaysia / Singapore for the real thing....

And I also make some sushi, to finish up the nori sheets. I think I won't have the craving for sushi for sometime after eating sushi twice this week.

And a banana cake, using Rose Levy Beranbaum recipe again.

Apparently, OCT's colleagues like my banana cake with dark chocolate ganache! Yeah! And now, I have a few bananas being frozen to be used at a later time. Guess I will stick with this banana cake recipe in the future.