Healthy Recipe 1: Chicken Satay

Okay guys. I gotta be real. Going into this one I was a little nervous. A year ago I got up on my high horse and thought that I was going to learn to cook Thai food. That endeavor ended up being a flat out joke. I learned that, not only is cooking Thai food expensive, but half of the ingredients that these recipes require are not sold in the United States. Well that's a lie. They probably sell them by the shitload in California. Because you know...California does everything. But in the podunk down of Lafayette, Louisiana, we don't have tamarind pulp or lemon grass stalks at any affordable or obvious grocery store. Also, I realized that I was taking on recipes that were EXTREMELY difficult and were probably meant to be cooked in a 500 year old family heirloom pot, with the freshest ingredients from the local market by a really adorable, caramel colored old lady in the streets of Thailand. I am not a cool caramel colored old Thai lady and I live in an apartment with an electric stove. The only market we have around here is "Fresh Pickins'" and they do NOT carry fresh kafir lime leaves. Let's just put it that way. So my adventures in Thai cooking ended with a flop with only two recipes under my belt. Then I switched focuses. I started THIS blog, with the intention of teaching people to cook healthy. This was also a joke because at this time I was not very good at cooking. I mean, I knew the basics. Boiling water, making a roux, frying an egg, sauteing vegetables, flipping pancakes, pot + water + vegetables = somewhat of a soup....I was basic. Well then my boyfriend left me and I went through that you know...6 month grieving period where I didn't really eat anything but McDonald's and soup from a can. But something strange started to happen. After I moved into my new apartment with my bigger kitchen I began to be a little more adventurous with cooking. I started making up recipes and combos that were healthy and I started to develop skills. Yes, skills beyond the ancient art of preparing grilled cheese. A lot of times I would call my mother and ask her, "mother, how does one bake pork chops?" I was extremely curious. And I think I channeled all of my anger and depression from my breakup into my stove.

Recently, I have decided to meet with my old nemesis, Asian food. I have developed tactics to cut costs with Asian food that have so far, to my great surprise, worked well. These are tips that I will share with you now if you are interested in learning to cook GOOD Asian food. Tip 1: Keep it simple. If something has a name that you can't pronounce, leave it up to the caramel colored lady. She knows what she's doing. You don't. The first dish I ever made was Chicken Stir-Fry. It tasted exactly like take out and that was good enough for me. And it was a plus because it didn't have MSG in it. AND it was something that I recognized. Tip 2: Start your collection of Asian ingredients off a little at a time. Buy the basics. Soy sauce, curry powder, Sriracha sauce, and coconut milk. All of these things are relatively inexpensive but when you buy a LOT of ingredients at once it could add up. I JUST now added things like, hoisin sauce, sesame oil, fish sauce (I recommend that you do not huff this stuff, don't smell it, it'll knock your socks off...you can tell that I speak from experience), rice vinegar and red curry paste to my collection. I also buy nori once in a blue moon since I don't use it that much. But that's the beauty of these ingredients. They're Asian staples. You probably won't need to keep buying these things unless you cook Asian everyday of the year. It's like flour or a bag of sugar...unless you're a baker you're probably only going to need to buy those things once a year. So start your collection off slow. Buy the basics and then if you HAPPEN to be strolling by the Asian section of the grocery store and you feel like picking up some sesame oil or crab stick...do so. Tip 3: Learn to substitute. I have not been able to find lemongrass stalks ANYWHERE in Lafayette. California must be hoarding them all for themselves. I can't even find DRIED lemongrass, even at the super expensive local grocery stores. So this is what I have learned to do. For every stalk of lemon grass, grate in some lemon zest and squeeze in a tablespoon of the juice. This gives pretty much the same effect as having a lemongrass stalk in your dish. Also, if the recipe calls for kafir lime leaves, lime zest works JUST as well. When looking at recipe, if you see a spice that you don't know, Google it. Type in "substitution for..." and you'll usually get some good results. Do a little research and if you can't find a substitution, look to see how much of an impact this is going to have on your dish. For instance, I cannot make anything that requires dill weed until I find dill weed in this city. Because dill weed is such a profound taste that if it was omitted from the recipe, it would really mess it up. So I just don't make those recipes. But the other day I found a recipe that called for turmeric. I was really concerned because I was making curry and I didn't have turmeric. So I went online and googled "substitution for turmeric" and I found out that turmeric is usually used for coloring in most foods and that if I was using curry powder I probably didn't need to use it. So if you look a recipe and you're intimidated because it includes scary things that you don't recognize, go ahead and Google and see what you can find. Now if the whole recipe includes things that you don't recognize, this is probably one for the old Thai lady. You just can't do it because you're not 100 years old and you don't possess magic old Asian lady powers. If you're an old Asian lady reading this, you're probably on a massive ego trip.........you're welcome. And finally Tip 4: Do not be afraid. I think that those words were spoken once by the famous Julia Child. Oh dear God...this is kitschy. She's food blogging and mentioning Julia Child...cue film reel of the movie "Julie and Julia". No I'm not going to go into excessive detail about that woman because that movie really pissed me off to be frank. I am neither inspired by or pleased with that movie. The only thing I liked about it was that two of my favorite actresses were in it, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. I was pissed off to no end that Julia Child actually had the gall to be MAD at Julie for having her as her role model. Oh my LORD that made me mad. I think I actually stormed out of the room the first time I saw it and had to be severely convinced to watch the ending. But....I digress. Julia DOES have a good point. You really can't be afraid to cook anything. Don't be afraid. Cooking Asian food is actually REALLY easy. A lot of it is sauce + meat served on top of rice. I didn't really think of this until I went to my local Chinese restaurant (Shangrila in Lafayette for the win) and reviewed their menu carefully.

Today, I am going to teach you to make a VERY easy dish that I was impressed with if I do say so myself. It's called Chicken Satay. This dish hails from the Southeastern Asian countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and the like. Interesting fact about satay: Satay is very popular in the Netherlands (says Wikipedia) because Indonesia was previously a Dutch colony. That's kind of the similar effect that chicken tikka masala has on Britain since India is a former British colony. Interesting stuff there. Well at least to me. Probably to no one else because I'm a complete food nerd. Moving on...

This recipe I obtained from AllRecipes.com (which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone who is looking for great recipes. It is undoubtedly my favorite website. I NEVER pay for apps for my iPhone or iPad but I have paid a total of $10 for two apps, the AllRecipes.com Dinner Spinner for my phone and the AllRecipes.com Kitchen Inspiration app for my iPad. You KNOW they got to be good if I was willing to give $10 in apps to their company)
The author of this recipe goes by the AllRecipes username "Shannon :)". There is my credit for this recipe, so I do not own it.
Here is the link to the recipe if you prefer to use the website over my blog: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Easy-Chicken-Satay/Detail.aspx

Basically, here is the recipe. I calculated it to serve 2 but you can go to the link I've provided and change the serving size, the site will convert the measurements for you. That's a gorgeous feature to this site as well.

Easy Chicken Satay:


Ingredients:

* 3 tablespoons and 1/2 teaspoon coconut milk
* 3/8 clove garlic, minced
* 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
* 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 5 ounces skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 1 inch strips
* 1/3 cup and 1 tablespoon coconut milk
* 1-1/4 teaspoons curry powder
* 3 tablespoons and 1/2 teaspoon creamy peanut butter
* 1/4 cup and 2 teaspoons chicken stock
* 1 tablespoon and 1-3/4 teaspoons brown sugar
* 2-1/2 teaspoons lime or lemon juice
* 1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
* Salt to taste
* 4 (6 inch) wooden skewers, or as needed, soaked in water for 30 minutes


The Marinade:

Stir together 1/2 cup coconut milk, garlic, 1 teaspoon curry powder, brown sugar, salt, and pepper until the sugar has dissolved. Toss marinade with the chicken, cover, and marinate for at least 2 hours.

The Dipping Sauce:

Bring coconut milk, curry powder, peanut butter, chicken stock, and brown sugar to a simmer in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring constantly, until smooth and thickened. Remove from heat and stir in lime juice and soy sauce; season to taste with salt.

Cooking the Chicken:

Preheat a grill for medium-high heat.
Thread marinated chicken onto skewers, then grill 4 to 5 minutes per side, or until cooked through. Serve with warm peanut sauce.


Katie's Edits:

This is where I will write out my edits to this recipe. Now having danced with Chicken Satay before, I know what can go wrong. In the pictures I have provided for this recipe, I have put up a WRONG picture and a correct picture. The wrong picture was from a year ago when I was trying to be a Thai chef and that chicken came out SO wrong. Here is the thing I didn't realize:

The chicken satay that I was cooking probably required a open flame grill. I mean like a BBQ pit or a "man's grill". So when they say to "cut the chicken into strips"...don't do this unless you are going to use an open flame. Because see the idea of chicken satay is to thread the chicken onto the skewer in a spiral fashion. This only allows the meat to cook all the way if it's on an open grill and everything is smokey and hot. If you're doing it on a grill pan on an electric stove, or even a gas stove, this is not going to work for you. The chicken will be undercooked. So this is what I did. I cut the chicken into equal sized chunks and threaded them up the middle onto the skewer. You can also cut it into long strips and thread it directly up the skewer so that it's flat on both sides. None of this fancy spiral thing if you're not cooking outdoors.

Second edit, go easy on the peanut butter. I personally think that this recipe has too much of a peanut butter flavor to the sauce and that's fine because peanut chicken is a very popular thing out East. But I wasn't too keen on how much of a peanut butter flavor this had. So maybe just add a little less than what the recipe calls for. Also take note that if you change the serving size on this recipe, follow the measurements that are in the ingredients list, not the measurements that are in the instructions.

Third edit, to make this dish healthier, don't use too much sauce on your chicken.
The meat is healthy on its own when served with a good fresh vegetable (I chose broccoli) but the sauce is a bit fattening. Peanut butter and coconut milk are very high in fat. So to make this dish healthier, do not go drenching your chicken pieces in this peanut butter sauce. I drizzled a little over the skewers of the chicken instead of using it as a side item on the plate.

Now to complete this dish, I made some garlic broccoli. The very first meal my mother ever taught me was Basil Chicken and Garlic Broccoli. When I moved into my first apartment, my freshman year of college my mother helped me set up my kitchen and gave me this first recipe to start off many that I would later learn by myself. Garlic broccoli is DELICIOUS, fresh, and extremely easy to make. So my credit goes to my mommy, Diann Foudriat.

Garlic Broccoli:

Ingredients: (serves 1)

1 cup of frozen broccoli (go for the whole pieces instead of the chopped)
1 clove of garlic
Splash of olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Sriracha sauce for a little extra kick (and because it makes everything taste better)

Heat your pan on medium high heat and drizzle in a little olive oil.
Defrost your broccoli in the microwave (I use frozen vegetables a LOT because they are actually higher in nutrients than fresh broccoli from the produce section. This is because they freeze the vegetables right after picking instead of shipping them all over the country in crates. And frozen is cheaper).
Toss your broccoli in the heated skillet and stir.
Add in some minced garlic AFTER you've put in the broccoli. Garlic burns really quickly and that's bad. When garlic burns it turns bitter.
Season with salt and pepper and stir the broccoli and garlic for 3-5 minutes.
Serve with the chicken satay and drizzle on a LITTLE Sriracha sauce. Sriracha sauce is a sweet chili sauce that comes in a bottle with a green top and a rooster on the front in the Asian section of your grocery store. It is extremely spicy. Do not drench your food in this. This is a horrible idea. But a little bit on just about anything will bring out the flavor. It is also great for clogged sinuses haha!

And there you have it ladies and gentlemen. A really healthy dish that really isn't that hard to make. I hope that you try this one and let me know how you liked it.


Good luck!

The Hungry Hungry Health Nut