sate lilit — Bali Island, Indonesia

Sate lilit is a satay from Balinese cuisine, distinguished from most other Indonesian satays by how the meat is attached to its stick. Rather than being cut into cubes and threaded onto a skewer, the meat here is minced and pressed by hand around the stick, a method the Balinese and Indonesian word lilit, “to wrap around”, describes directly. The dish is closely tied to Bali, where it appears both at temple ceremonies and communal feasts and as an everyday item sold at warungs across the island. It is made with a range of proteins, including pork, chicken, fish, beef, and, in some older accounts, turtle meat, depending on occasion and availability. To prepare it, the chosen meat is minced and mixed with grated coconut, thick coconut milk, lime juice, shallot and a Balinese spice paste typically built on turmeric, garlic, ginger or galangal, and sometimes kaffir lime leaf. The seasoned mixture is pressed by hand around sticks of bamboo, sugar cane or lemongrass, left flat and wide rather than narrow and pointed like the sticks used for cubed-meat satay, then grilled over charcoal until browned and fragrant. This flat, wide stick is what sets sate lilit apart: it gives the minced meat a broad surface to cling to and cook evenly around, unlike the narrow skewers of other satay styles which hold small pieces of whole meat. The exact mix of protein, coconut and spice paste used varies from household to household and from one part of Bali to another.