It’s all about the sauce. Really. The chicken is just something to put the sauce on so you don’t have to spoon it into your mouth by itself and look weird.
Outside of a restaurant, I have rarely had decent peanut sauce, including several store bought whose labels held such promise. However, recently at Jeannine’s sister (Wendy’s) house, we had some very good peanut sauce and chicken skewers. So, I decided to tackle this meal.
Wendy’s recipe came from here: Allrecipes.com
While I was in search of a good peanut sauce (which her’s was), I wasn’t willing to make it really complicated or use a bunch of one-time expensive ingredients. So I kept looking because I didn’t want to add cooking the sauce, peanut oil, fish sauce, and coconut milk to the mix, none of which I had.
Based on reviews and my own armchair ingredient assessments, I settled on a different sauce recipe from Allrecipes.com by Jeramyn Feucht, and a chicken marinade recipe from Tyler Florence of Food Network fame. See below for these recipes including my modifications.
Meal timeline.
The chicken should sit in the marinade for at least 2 hours - maybe 3. The peanut sauce can be made in 15 minutes, but I think the flavors tend to blend and intensify a bit with time, so I suggest making it at the same time you put the chicken in the marinade and then refrigerate it until mealtime.
Curry Chicken Skewers
I used two large boneless skinless chicken breasts. What comes in a single “packet” of Costco’s multi-packs. I washed, dried, trimmed and cut these into about 2” long by 3/4” thick strips. You have to take the thickest part of the breast and butterfly it. This ended up making 9 skewers with 3 pieces each on them. 3 skewers was sufficient for dinner for each of us.
MARINADE
Mix the following ingredients together and thoroughly coat chicken in a baking dish, cover and refrigerate for 2-3 hours turning every hour. (Note I bumped up the ratio of seasonings to yogurt from the original recipe, and the curry flavor is still subtle but present.)
- 12oz (two small 6 oz containers) plain yogurt
- 2 TBS freshly minced or grated ginger
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- 2 TBS curry powder
COOKING
Soak some wooden skewers for 30 minutes or more in water, then after marinating the chicken, put on skewers. Cook slowly on a medium to low grill, turning 2X (a pannini press would work too). Chicken should be browned on the outside but not overcooked. Check with tongs and once the chicken loses its resiliency to a squeeze with the tongs, it is usually done.
Remove to a warmed platter, cover and serve with sauce.
Peanut Sauce
Mix all the ingredients below together adjusting the oil and spices to personal taste. I doubled the original recipe (reflected in quantities below) and did some adjusting of ratios based upon other reviewers and my taste testing. I have to confess that I didn’t use a measuring device for any of this but just “eyeballed” it.
- 1/4 to 1/3 cup honey to taste. If you heat the honey a little in the microwave (like 20 seconds) it helps when mixing.
- 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter. (I used Adams “no-stir” which has NO sugar added. If sweetened, it could affect your honey quantity)
- 5 TBS soy sauce (I ended up adding some additional to taste)
- 2 TBS rice vinegar (don’t substitute any other type of vinegar)
- 2 TBS olive oil
- 1 TBS sesame oil (adjust up to taste, a little goes a long way)
- 1 TBS minced garlic
- 2 TBS grated fresh ginger root (I peeled and minced mine per original recipe, but Jeannine and I both felt that even a fine mince was too “chunky” for the sauce)
- 1 TBS Sriracha sauce (Asian red chili and garlic sauce) adjust up to taste
- Juice from 1/4 fresh lime
The vinegar and lime balance the sweetness of the peanut butter and honey. Adjust each at the end to get the taste you desire. Adding extra oil will adjust the “viscosity” of the sauce. The oil quantities listed above result in a fairly thick but not oily sauce. Adjust soy sauce and Sriracha sauce to taste.
Serve with Basmati rice and a veggie of choice.
