The Tausug breakfast kebab of Zamboanga and the Sulu archipelago: small skewers of charcoal-grilled beef or chicken submerged in a bowl of thick, spicy-sweet annatto-red sauce and eaten with tamu, rice cakes steamed in woven coconut-leaf pouches. It descends from Malay satay carried north through the Sulu trade zone, cooked and eaten before dawn in dedicated satti houses.
Also known as: satti, satti zamboanga, tausug satti, sulu satti, satti with tamu, sinugba satti
Watch it made
Ingredients
- 600 g beef or chicken, small 2 cm pieces (satti skewers run tiny)
- 2 tbsp soy sauce and 1 tbsp calamansi or lime juice
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- for the sauce: 3 tbsp rice flour toasted, 1 l water, 3 red chilies and 3 garlic cloves ground with 1 stalk lemongrass, 2 tbsp palm sugar, 1 tbsp annatto water, salt
- ta'mu (woven rice cakes) or plain puso-style rice cakes
- bamboo skewers
How to make it
- 1
Marinate the meat in soy, calamansi and garlic 2 hours, then thread just 3 small pieces per stick — Zamboanga satti is eaten by the dozen, not the skewer.
- 2
Whisk the toasted rice flour into the water, add the chili-garlic-lemongrass grind, palm sugar, annatto and salt, and simmer 20 minutes, whisking, into a thick, glowing orange-red gravy.
- 3
Grill the little skewers over fierce charcoal 4-6 minutes total; small pieces want a fast blister.
- 4
Ladle the hot sauce into shallow bowls to a depth that will half-drown the meat.
- 5
Stand the skewers in the sauce with cubes of rice cake and serve immediately, breakfast-style.
Pro tip: The sauce is served as the plate itself — thin it past porridge-thick and the skewers fall over; keep it just spoonable so they stand.
