I just needed a quick, nibblely, sharing-type supper, so I found a recipe in Lorraine Pascale's book Home Cooking Made Easy. However, on reading through it, I realised that she never marinated the chicken!? What? So I brought out my trusty little Cookshelf Thai book again, and found a satay beef marinade. Almost everything that Lorraine put in her peanut sauce, went in the marinade, apart from the peanut butter. While Ms Pascale simply shallow fries the skewered chicken, and then daubs it in honey near the end of cooking, my little marinade made it extra special and oh so much more authentic. Her peanut sauce was grand, more than acceptable, and similar to the one from my little book, so I'll give her that one. Now I love to watch Lorraine Pascale, she makes everything look easy, and, to be fair, her book makes it so, but a not marinating a satay chicken? When you are making it anyway for the dip? I would...
Satay Chicken |
Ingredients:
7-8 chicken mini fillets, or 3-4 breasts cut into strips
Oil for frying
Drizzle of honey (optional)
Fresh coriander
For the marinade:
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 cm ginger, chopped
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp light soy sauce
juice 1 lime
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp chilli powder/ 1-2 fresh chillies, chopped
For the peanut sauce:
100g crunchy peanut butter
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 red chillies, chopped
pinch of light brown sugar
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
juice 1 lime
3-4 tbsp Chinese rice wine
1-2 tbsp water
Method:
Mix all the marinade ingredients together (you can blitz them if you wish, but there's no real need) and marinate the chicken in it for at least an hour, but the longer, the better.
Mix all the marinade ingredients together (you can blitz them if you wish, but there's no real need) and marinate the chicken in it for at least an hour, but the longer, the better.
Soak some wooden skewers in water for about half an hour, cut so that they fit in your frying pan.
Make up the peanut sauce by blitzing (or roughly chopping) all the ingredients together. Taste and season as you like.
When you are ready to cook the chicken, heat some oil in your frying pan. Skewer 2-3 mini fillets on each skewer (you don't have to use skewers if you don't have any, you can just fry them as they are) and shallow fry for 5-8 mins on each side, making sure they are cooked through. Alternatively, grill them for 10-12 minutes each side. You can drizzle a little honey over them near the end of cooking if you wish, but make sure you wipe the honey out in between if you are cooking in batches.
Serve the skewers with the peanut sauce, sprinkled with fresh coriander, and perhaps a chopped cucumber and red pepper salad.