Good Food Hunting

I have been looking forward to making this since it was first posted at Runs with Spatula on the 15th. Trying to figure out the right night to have time to set the marinade up and let it do its job meant I had to put it off until today.  Totally worth the wait.

Daring Cooks: Pork Chicken Satay

Marinade

• 1/2 small onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, grated
• 1 tablespoon ginger root, grated
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Protein/meat

1 pound of chicken breasts, cut into thin strips

In a food processor or blender, dump in everything except the chicken and blend until smooth.
Cover chicken with marinade. You can place the pork into a bowl, cover/seal and chill, or place the whole lot of it into a ziplock bag, seal and chill.  If using wooden or bamboo skewers, soak your skewers in warm water for at least 20 minutes before preparing skewers.

Gently and slowly slide meat strips onto skewers. Discard leftover marinade.

Broil or grill a 3 – 4 minutes per side on a hot grill or grill pan or until the edges just start to char. Flip and cook another 3 – 4 minutes.

Peanut Sauce

• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 3/4 cup light coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic-chili paste, or to taste (highly recommend at least this much)
  

Mix the brown sugar, cumin, coriander, red pepper flakes and garlic-chili paste in a small bowl. Add soy sauce and lemon, mix well.  Over low heat, combine coconut milk, peanut butter and soy-lemon seasoning mix. Mix well, stir often.  All you’re doing is melting the peanut butter, so make your peanut sauce after you’ve made everything else in your meal, or make ahead of time and reheat.  Adjust seasoning as needed at this point.

I used chicken instead of the pork that Amy originally used. When I think satay, I think chicken. Plus, we had pork for dinner last night.

Chris’s verdict: home run, make this again*

Because I am incredibly lazy and because during the marinating time, I ran to the pharmacy which took too long and I got home after the MSU game started, I skipped skewering and just laid my strips out on to the foil for going under the broiler.

My other major change: I added more peanut butter after tasting. We use Simply Jif, a low salt/low sugar peanut butter. After melting, the sauce felt too thin and also not very peanutty. I think this might be due to the reduced salt along with the competition from the other strong flavors.

Served with shiitake mushrooms and bell pepper stir-fry (soy sauce, sesame oil and a dash of fish sauce) and rice seasoned with cardamom.

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I imagine this sauce would go well with any protein. The vegetarians will just want to skip the fish sauce. I can’t offer any substitutes but I can say to not add more soy sauce. You may need to adjust your salt as fish sauce has a fair amount. I use low sodium soy sauce and didn’t any salt to any part of the dish.

*Lucky for Chris, I had a whole extra chicken breast that I tossed in the marinade after dinner. He’ll have a nice treat tomorrow.