Next to stuffed food, food on a stick is one of my favorites. No utensils needed, easy to eat on the go, and kids think it’s so fun!

In China, if you know where to go, you’ll see late night food carts full of freshly skewered food, just waiting for you to point at it. The skewered foods will be tossed on the grill and a sprinkling of seasonings added. In larger cities these food carts are starting to fade away, but they are still around, tucked in corners throughout the city, waiting for late night revelers. In other cities in Asia, where food carts are very much still alive and cookin’, customers might snag a pop up table saddled with bright colored plastic stools and if they are really lucky, an ice cold beer will be served alongside it.

I had been craving something coconut-y and peanut butter-y but I didn’t want it to be something sweet. I remembered I had some skewers on hand, but didn’t want just any old veg on them. I was craving something with some substance. Then I remembered a dish that my husband (in his meat eating days) and friends loved to order at Southeast Asian restaurants, and that dish is satay.

Satay comes from an amalgamation of cultural cuisines from Southeast Asia, with it’s roots thought to be from Java, a breathtakingly beautiful island Indonesia. Interestingly, when you look a bit further back in history, this popular street food was actually inspired by the kebabs of India. However, it was the exotic spices of the Spice Islands that made this dish uniquely Indonesian. As people migrated throughout Southeast Asia, they created new versions of the dish made with locally available ingredients.

And that’s just what I am bringing you today, a vegan version that more closely represents the Thai version of satay. I used ingredients easily found at local markets here in Shanghai, and instead of using tofu I used kaofu, or mianjin, which is a traditional Chinese version of seitan.

If you are gluten free you can definitely replace the kaofu with tofu or even tempeh. If you do use kaofu, don’t worry about marinating it for too long. It literally looks like a sponge, which means it soaks up the marinade, well, like a sponge. This will be a flavor bomb in your mouth. Wowza!