Thursday, January 24, 2008

Chicken Satay


With the upcoming Super Bowl, I have been featuring various appetizer recipes in my blog. One of my favorite Thai appetizers is Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce. Satay is popular in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, and the Netherlands. You'll find that the recipes for satay vary in each country, but it invariably consists of chunks of meat skewered and grilled over a wood or charcoal fire. While I would love to be able to do that to impart a genuine grilled/smoky taste to my chicken, we don't have a grill... so I use my George Foreman grill instead and it seems to turn out pretty well.

This was the very first recipe I tried for Chicken Satay. I loved it so much, I haven't tried any others. Whenever I make the peanut sauce for the Cold Sesame Noodles, I always make a little extra because I love to use it as a dipping sauce for this dish. Some Thai restaurants will also serve this with a cucumber relish. The cucumber is refreshing and helps cleanse the palate before you take your next bite of the chicken. I don't have photos of it, but I have included a recipe for the cucumber relish below.


Chicken Satay
from Allrecipes.com

2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup lemon or lime juice
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons curry powder
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (I used Sambal Oelek Chili Paste)
6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cubed

In a mixing bowl, combine peanut butter, soy sauce, lime juice, brown sugar, curry powder, garlic and hot pepper sauce. Place the chicken breasts in the marinade and refrigerate. Let the chicken marinate at least 2 hours, overnight is best.

Preheat a grill to high heat. (I used my George Foreman grill.)

Weave the chicken onto skewers, then grill for 5 minutes per side. (With the George Foreman grill, I find it takes only about 3-5 minutes total, depending on how big your pieces of chicken are.)

Yield: 12 Servings.


Peanut Sauce
from Tyler Florence

1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 green onion, thinly sliced on the diagonal
1/2-inch piece fresh ginger, minced
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon red chili paste, such as Sambal Oelek (omit this if you don't tolerate spicy foods well)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1-1/2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1-1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons hot water

In a small saucepan, heat the peanut oil over medium-low flame. Add the green onions, ginger, garlic, and chili paste. Cook and stir for a minute until soft and fragrant. Mix in the brown sugar, peanut butter, vinegar, soy sauce, and hot water. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and the peanut butter has smoothed out.


Cucumber Relish
from Mom :)

1 cucumber, diced
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup white vinegar
dash of salt and pepper

In a small bowl, combine the sugar, vinegar, salt, and pepper and mix well. Add the cucumbers and toss to coat. Refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving.

12 comments:

  1. Mmmm, satay is awesome and this looks fabulous!

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  2. clearly people will be paying more attention to the food than the game if it's all that fabulous!

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  3. I've only have peanut satay once and wasn't keen on it but this all loots and sounds delicious. I'll have to try it sometime!

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  4. Oh I love them. Looks so delicious

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  5. Who doesn't love chicken satay. This looks great.

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  6. Hi there!

    While searching for chicken satay recipe and almost in double mind to try the Allrecipes one, I accidentally landed in your blog and it just made my cooking easier...I stuck to the peanut sauce recipe you had given and also the cucumber relish which I love at Thai restaurants :) As you said,I just liked this satay recipe and my search ends now :)

    Thanks a lot!

    Shn

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  7. Peanut sauce is so tasty! Satay chicken goes well with it. mmm....

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  8. This looks really good! I'm going to give them a try.

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  9. Hi! I found this recipe through the food blog search and made this for my friends the other night during a Thai night party I had. I made these as an appetizers and I got so many compliments!! I had ALOT of people asking for the recipe! I also made it in the George Foreman and loved the grill marks! Thanks for making my party a hit!
    I also am looking forward to making more of the sauce so I could eat it like with your cold sesame noodles! I have marked your site as a go to now! There are so many recipes I would LOVE to try! One of them is our favorite chocolate chip cookie! My go to chocolate chip recipe has always been the allrecipes.com one called "Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies," it has about 4350 reviews and the secret to the soft cookies is sprinkling the unmade pudding mix into the batter. I use high quality chips, freeze the uncooked dough, label plastics bags with the baking instructions and give them out during Christmas to friends. I also have them frozen in my freezer for cravings. I wonder how they would compare to yours?
    Thanks again for posting the satay recipe! (Also I wanted to let you know that the link for the chicken satay on the right under popular recipes has an extra http. When I clicked on it, it took me to another page and I had to take out the http.) I look forward to your future posts!

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  10. TN - thanks for letting me know you enjoyed it! i really love it, and wish i could make it more often, but my husband doesn't like peanut sauce :( i have actually made the recipe you are referring to with the pudding - it's on my blog here
    http://www.goodeatsblog.com/2008/01/best-chocolate-chip-cookie.html

    i really love that cookie, and it was my favorite until i tried the baking illustrated recipe. they are both really really good CC cookies though, so you can't go wrong with either recipe :)

    thanks again for visiting my blog, and i'm glad to hear you will back to visit again soon :)

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  11. We've made this dish a few times and have really enjoyed it, I'll be posting the recipe on my blog shortly. Thank you for posting the recipe and pictures. Love your blog!

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  12. I recently made this and it was delicious! I am so glad you posted these recipes, thank you!

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