When my niece made some satay the other day, I was reminded of Admiral Zheng He. According to a story, satay was created in Malacca and the admiral had a role in its creation. The Sultan had invited the admiral to dinner and when the subject of food cropped up, the Sultan had voiced his desire to sample some of the dishes cooked by the latter's chefs. The admiral then instructed a chef who happened to be with him to proceed to the palace kitchen to whip up a dish. Caught unprepared without proper utensils and ingredients, the chef had simply cut up some chicken and beef into cubes, marinated them and skewered 3 pieces of meat to each bamboo stick and had them cooked over the open fire. Later when the Sultan asked for the name of the dish, he simply said Sa Tay; that means three pieces in the Hokkien dialect. Satay by the way is a dish made of seasoned meat, skewered and grilled and eaten with a sauce; very popular Southeast Asia. Both Thailand and Malaysia claim it as their own but the dish is believed to have its origin in East Java, Indonesia and had been in existence as early as the 15th century. Originally, it is supposed to be called sak beteng which means one stick in Javanese. Admiral Zheng 郑和 by the way lived around 1371 to 1433 or 1435. He was a Chinese mariner and explorer and had led expedition to Southeast Aia, India, Western Asia and East Africa from 1405 to 1433.
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