If you bought peanuts without the skin, place them in a frying pan over medium-low heat and give them a quick roast until they are toasty and brown. Remember to shake the pan every few minutes to them moving so that they don't burn. They take about 10 minutes.

If you bought shelled peanuts, or peanuts with the skin on, shell them and toast them in a frying pan over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes. Shake the pan every few minutes to prevent them from burning. This takes about 10 minutes.Once the peanuts have finished roasting, let it cool. The skins should be cracked and the peanuts would have shrunk slightly which makes it easier to remove the skins by rubbing them between your palms or fingers.

Once the peanuts have finished roasting, let them cool a bit. Then in a mortar and pestle crush the peanuts up finely. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, you can pulse it in a food processor (pulse a few times until peanuts are in smaller pieces, do not blend it because that will make peanut butter.) Alternatively, you can also hand chop it finely.

Reserve 1-2 tablespoons of the finely crushed peanuts as a topping

Soak 2 teaspoon tamarind pulp in a 3-4 tablespoons of boiling water for 15 to 30 minutes minutes and then strain out the seeds and skins. Save the tamarind water for the sauce, there should be about 3 tablespoons.If you are using tamarind paste from a jar, you can skip this step.

Chop up the galangal, garlic, lemongrass and shallots and put them into a food processor and blitz it to it is almost a paste. If you don’t have a food processor you can chop them by hand but chop them up finely. The finer the chop the less chunks in the sauce.

In a pan, add some oil onto medium heat and brown the lemongrass, shallot, garlic galangal mixture.

Add in the chopped birds eye chili and continue to cook it in the pan for a few minutes.

Turn down the stove to low heat and add in 1 cup coconut milk, 2-3 tablespoons fish sauce, tamarind water (or tamarind paste), 1 tablespoon lime juice, and ¾ cup water and stir until combined.

Add ¼ cup palm sugar and crushed peanuts and continue to cook for 10-15 minutes

If you find the sauce too thick, add some more water to thin it out.

Taste it and adjust the flavour. Is it salty, sweet or sour enough for you? Everyone has a different preference on how they enjoy peanut sauce. Adjust accordingly by tweaking it with lime juice, sugar or fish sauce.