Thai Curry Chicken Skewers and Peanut Sauce

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.

Post Easter Au Gratin

Nothing like potatoes au gratin to go with leftover Easter ham.  I don’t think I have ever made an au gratin before, so I approached it as usual, searched online for common recipe themes and stuff that sounded good then synthesized something.  Below is the result, which actually came out quite tasty.  I don’t think I would change a thing.

• 2 large russet potatoes
• 1 yellow onion
• 1.25 cups milk
• 2 TB butter
• 2 TB flour
• about 3 – 4 ounces of grated or shredded parmesan.  The real stuff if possible, this makes a big difference in flavor.  Results in about 2/3 cup +/- of shredded.
• Panko bread crumbs
• salt and pepper

Start by peeling and thinly slice the russets.  Let soak in a bowl of fairly heavily salted water while doing everything else.  Thinly slice the onion and sauté until soft in olive oil or butter.  Prepare a medium sized covered casserole with cooking spray.

Make a white sauce with the butter, flour and milk *.  Add the grated cheese and stir until smooth and melted.  Pepper to taste.

Drain and remove excess water from potato slices.  Layer potatoes, onions, sauce, overlapping the potato slices by about half a slice.  Lightly pepper each layer.  Should come out to about 4 layers.  End with sauce on top of last layer of potatoes.

Bake covered in a preheated 425 degree oven for about 45 – 50 minutes until potatoes are done when checked with a meat fork.  Sprinkle top with Panko and put back in oven uncovered for a few minutes until brown.  (If you have finely grated parmesan, you can add this to the Panko too).  Remove from oven and let rest for at least 5 minutes.

* I make my white sauce by making a white roux then adding hot milk to the roux while stirring constantly.  Microwaving the milk in a Pyrex measuring cup saves another pot and burner.

Below is a bad picture of finished au gratin resting before being devoured.

Cheap and Tasty

Blogging takes a lot of time.  And there are so many other really good blogs out there that have nice pictures where you can tell the blogger has invested a lot of quality time into.  So I haven’t made an entry in a long time being busy and feeling inadequate.  In the interval, there has been grilled halibut, burgers, rib roasts, salmon and asparagus risotto, basmati rice with various accoutrements, plus good wines, bad wines, familiar wines, etc.

What to do with a package of 5 fresh sweet pork sausages from Trader Joes (grand total of $3.97).  I took 2 of them, pan steamed them in a little olive oil and about 1/4 cup chicken broth, then took the lid off to brown them a bit.  Added a peeled and cubed gala apple and some grape tomatoes, put the lid back on for awhile.

During the ever present, “meanwhile” you find in most recipes, I cooked some penne pasta and steamed some broccoli. Added the al dente pasta to the sausage pan with the cover off and cooked down the remaining liquid while the broccoli finished its “broccolizing”.  Salt and pepper to taste, and voila, a colorful, cheap and tasty dish for two.  All for probably about $2 per serving.  

Swiss Steak

This recipe came from the Food Network’s, Alton Brown, here:  Swiss Steak

Swiss steak that I have had in the past has kind of been a modified stroganoff on either noodles or rice or mashed potatoes.  This recipe didn’t specify “how” to eat it, but the family had it on mountains of mashed potatoes, which was delicious since you end up with lots of wonderful thick sauce.

I made a couple of modifications to the recipe of course, mostly in the meat department.  My version is below.

Ingredients

~3 pounds (before trimming) of chuck steak or roast
salt 
black pepper 
all-purpose flour
vegetable oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced (or equivalent pre-minced)
2 stalks celery, chopped about 1/4” thick
1- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 cups beef broth
1/4 cup red wine

Directions

Trim the meat fairly meticulously of fat and connective tissue and cut into roughly 1/2” thick by 1”x1.5” pieces.  (This takes awhile with chuck, but the resulting flavor and tenderness using this meat is amazing.)  Season meat liberally with salt and pepper.  Dredge in flour.  The original recipe calls for using a “needling” tenderizer at this step.  (I used a Jaccard meat tenderizer  which we happen to have, but I think you could probably pound the meat with a tenderizer or maybe even skip this step since the chuck comes out so tender.)  After tenderizing, dredge again in flour.

Select a dutch oven like Le Crueset that is large enough to hold all the finished ingredients in about half it’s volume.  This will cook covered in the oven for a couple hours as the final step.

In the dutch oven you selected, over medium to medium-high heat cook the meat in small batches in a thin layer of oil, turning once, to brown.  Meat will not be cooked all the way through.  Remove batches to a plate with paper towel to absorb excess oil.  You may need to add more oil in the process, make sure it is shimmering up to heat before adding meat.  Make sure not to burn the bits on the bottom of the pan.

Add more oil if necessary and sauté the onions and celery until soft.  Add the garlic at the end without browning it.  Deglaze pan with a little red wine.  Add the rest of the ingredients and whisk together.  Add meat back in and make sure liquid just covers the meat, if not, add some more beef broth.

Cover the pot and place in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 2 hours.  Test seasoning for salt and pepper and serve over mashed potatoes.

I served this with green beans butter steamed with onions and bacon:

Trim and cut fresh green beans to serve 6.  Chop about 1/2 of an onion.  Chop up about 2-3 slices of bacon.  Cook the bacon in a little bit of olive oil in a large non-stick fry pan that you can cover.  Add the onions when the bacon is almost cooked.  Sauté onions until soft.  Add beans and about a tablespoon of butter plus a little cayenne pepper to taste (dash or two) and generous salt and pepper.  Saute for a couple minutes to coat beans, add about 1/4 cup + of chicken broth and cover.  Turn down heat to a simmer and cook until beans are done.  Uncover and reduce remaining liquid to almost gone. 

Classic Pot Roast (and stew) Master Recipe

Updated 12/2016 and again 12/2022 with recent refinements and modifications.

This is a "master recipe" that I have worked on using a lot of input from various Cooks Magazine recipes. The smell in the house as it is finishing up is quite intoxicating. I am making some now to eat tomorrow, and at 8:00pm after already having eaten, it smells so good I want to devour it now.

Chuck roast is the king of pot roasts. When braised in liquid for several hours, it comes out falling apart tender with great flavor, and you can sometimes find it on sale for under $4.00 a pound (2016, not so in 2022). There is lots of information out there on what types of roasts to choose for what type of cooking, so I won't go into that here. Just trust the chuck for pot roasts and stew!  (2016 update:  I have found that grass fed quality roasts from retailers like PCC or Whole Foods really do make a difference in taste.)

Buy more meat than you think you need, since leftovers are awesome. Around ½ - 3/4 lb per person. The following general quantities are geared around a 3 lb roast or 2lbs of stew meat.

In a large dutch oven that is big enough for everything to fit in with at least an inch of room below the top brown/sear the roast in some high temp oil like Avacado oil. Roast should be dry and seasoned liberally with salt and pepper before searing. Spray or brush with some oil on the meat first to hold the seasoning on.  Sear on all sides holding upright with tongs if necessary. Adjust heat while searing to keep from burning fond. Remove roast when browned to a plate and cover with foil.

Sauté about 3 cups mirepoix until soft.  Then add at least ½ bottle of decent red wine. Turn up the heat and deglaze the pan and reduce the wine to 1/3 or 1/2.  With heat still up, add a 32 oz box/can of prepared beef broth; half a 6oz small can of tomato paste, and either about 3 inches of anchovy paste out of the tube or about 4-5 minced anchovies (these are optional, but nicely enhances the beefiness of the broth and resulting gravy. This ingredient was from Cooks Mag.) Also optional, add about 2 tablespoons chopped dried porcini mushrooms and a packet or two of Savory Choice beef broth concentrate. Add a couple bay leaves, some juniper berries if you have them and a little bit of thyme if you want.   Blend together and add the meat and any juices back to the pot.  Liquid should just cover the meat.

Cover dutch oven and put in a 285 - 300 degree oven for at least 3 hours. (Tip: foil the bottom side of the lid and you won't have to clean off a layer of thick dark goo later.) Roast should be close to done at this point. Taste test the broth and add salt and pepper if required. Add cut up red potatoes and large chunks of carrots and optionally a small parsnip for about another 90 minutes of cooking until vegetables are nice and soft. Mushrooms and fresh green beans can be used too. Liquid should just cover everything.

When done, remove meat and vegetables and any solids to a warm serving dish and keep warm and covered. Add a little of the cooking liquid so it doesn't dry out while making the gravy.

Strain the cooking liquid into a separate sauce pan and keep on low heat.  Preparing a roux in the Dutch oven. Add the hot simmering liquid to roux slowly whisking into a luxurious gravy. Don't add roux to broth or use cool broth unless you want lumpy gravy. (This gravy, made from a butter roux and the cooking liquid that started out with wine and beef broth, enhanced by the cooking of the roast and vegetables, is like liquid gold. You will want to drink it straight and go to heaven, which you may, since it will probably clog your arteries, but you will die happy.)

Modifications for Stew:

• For stew meat, unless your butcher has high quality, well trimmed chuck stew meat, the best approach is to buy a chuck roast and trim it meticulously and cut it up yourself.  This takes probably an extra 30 minutes but the quality of the stew meat is so much better and your guests won't get that "chewy piece".  I tend to make my stew meat pieces 1/2 to 1/3 the size of what comes typically in the store.
• When browning the meat, brown in batches so you are just barely covering the bottom of the pan or it will stew instead of brown.  (I know this is supposed to be stew...)
• Cut the vegetables a little smaller more appropriate for a stew and soup spoon.
• Eliminate the gravy step and serve straight from pot.

A Test Run at Feta Dressing

Brier Pizza (formerly Neapolis) has always had a house feta salad dressing that is the dressing of choice when dining there, both for salads and dipping your pizza crust in (a culinary habit the kids introduced us to). The recipe isn't given out, but a former cook told me there were "5 ingredients". A bottle costs $6 which we have indulged in more than a couple times, but I wanted to be able to replicate it at home. The following is attempt number 1, which came out pretty close I think. With some further testing and the tweaking, I think it would be "close enough". This recipe I can't take full credit for, as it was the one that looked closest from a variety of web recipes. The original recipe called for garlic powder which I substituted, and oregano which I eliminated.

[I am also with this post experimenting with a different posting method, using MS Word's Publish function. The last post was very painful to format, and the addition of the pictures dufured everything up, eliciting more than a couple of choice words.]

Ingredients:

• 1 cup mayonnaise
  
• ½ cup sour cream
  
• 4 teaspoon white vinegar
  
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
  
• 1 minced garlic clove
  
• 2 oz. crumbled feta cheese
  
• 1 to 2 tablespoons milk
  

Directions

Combine mayonnaise, sour cream and feta cheese in food processor. Process while adding vinegar. Add garlic and process, then add seasonings to taste. Add milk last until desired thickness is achieved. Best to let sit for a few hours before serving.

*** February 16, 2010 Update

I made a full batch today with the blender (for the above post I made a test ½ batch and blended it by hand). I wouldn't modify the ingredients but the directions I would. I used the blender to first thoroughly crumble the feta to a fine bread crumb like consistency. Then I added the mayo and sour cream. This worked well at eliminating some of the lumpiness I had in my test batch, but more feta than I wanted stayed at the bottom of blender after everything was done. I think next time I will crumble the feta fine in a dry blender, then take it out into a ramekin or small bowl. Then blend the mayo, sour cream and some milk before adding in the feta.

The other thing I will note is that the dressing got much thicker after a day in the refrigerator, so adding a bit of extra milk up front and letting it sit seems to be called for.

On quantity, the above recipe will make a little bit more than will fit in the typical 12oz salad dressing bottle.

Home Made Taco Seasoning Mix

Another web recipe mash-up. Taco mix not in the pouch. I have never been a big fan of the taco seasoning packets. The taste ends up too processed and the taco meat too runny. This recipe you can play with to taste how you like it, and in its native form, tastes pretty good. In the 2 times I have made it so far, I have not been precise with the measurements, and skipped the onion powder since I didn't have any on hand. Sautéed onions with the ground beef seems like a better way.

Beer and tacos are natural buddies, and 1554 Enlightened Black Ale by New Belgium (of Fat Tire fame) went down good.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. In a small bowl, mix together chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, red pepper flakes, oregano, paprika, cumin, salt and pepper. Add 2 -3 TBS of mix to 1lb of cooked ground beef. (Extra seasoning can be stored in an airtight container. )
2. After meat is seasoned, add 2 tsp cornstarch to 2/3 cup of water and add to meat and seasoning mixture.