Recommendations

Chicken satay with Bobby’s Jenever

On the platter lie skewers of chicken breast that have marinated for an hour in ketjap manis, sambal and garlic and were then grilled, with a sauce of peanut butter, ketjap, ginger syrup and ginger powder alongside. Opposite stands a jenever that brings lemongrass, clove, cardamom and ginger as well as juniper berry, carrying the spices from the marinade on into the glass.

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From the shelf

The bottle

Bobby’s Jenever is a young jenever of 38% vol in a 70 cl bottle. It is distilled with lemongrass, cloves, juniper berries, cardamom and ginger, following a recipe that goes back to the maker's grandfather. The description gives no exact malt wine share, so we do not state one. For the designation jenever, the law requires at least 30% vol and at least 1.5% alcohol from malt wine; at 38% vol this bottle is well above that, and ageing in wood is not part of this style.

Bobby’s Jenever

The combination

Why this works together

Chicken satay with peanut sauce has three layers that demand attention: the ketjap makes the chicken sweet and salty, the sambal brings heat, and the peanut sauce adds fat and even more sweetness on top. An ordinary neutral young genever would only wash those layers away, cold. This bottle can do more, because the botanicals it is distilled with point in exactly the same direction as the marinade: the ginger in the glass finds the ginger syrup and the ground ginger in the sauce, the clove and cardamom connect with the ketjap, and the lemongrass gives a citrusy freshness that cuts through the peanut fat. The juniper keeps everything dry and makes sure sweet does not meet sweet. That way the genever does not become an opponent of the dish but a continuation of it, without stoking the heat of the sambal.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 30 minutes, plus 1 hour marinating
  • Type main course

What you need

  • 380 g chicken breast fillet
  • 6 tablespoons ketjap manis
  • 2 teaspoons sambal oelek
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 175 g peanut butter with nut pieces
  • 150 ml water
  • 2 tablespoons ginger syrup
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 3 tablespoons desiccated coconut
  • satay skewers

How to make it

  1. Cut the chicken fillet into 3 cm pieces. Mix the chicken with almost all of the ketjap and half of the sambal and press half of the garlic over it. Cover and refrigerate the chicken for at least 1 hour.
  2. Soak the satay skewers in water for at least 30 minutes.
  3. Put the peanut butter, the remaining ketjap and the remaining sambal in a saucepan and press the rest of the garlic into it. Add the water and the ginger syrup and stir in the ginger powder.
  4. Warm the sauce, stirring regularly until smooth.
  5. Thread the chicken onto the skewers and grill them for about 15 minutes on the barbecue or in a grill pan, until cooked through and browned on the outside.
  6. Sprinkle the skewers with the desiccated coconut and serve them with the peanut sauce.

In the glass

Serving

Pour the Bobby’s chilled from the fridge into a small tulip glass, filled to the brim. At about 8 °C the lemongrass and cardamom come out most clearly; ice-cold from the freezer, those spices are shut down and you are left with only the alcohol. Room temperature is also fine for the bottle, as the maker itself states, but then the spiciness runs a little ahead of the dish.

All about Bobby’s JeneverBack to Recommendations from ’t Bockje

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