Chicken Satay

For the first of my blog arch on Thai cooking, I'll be sharing the recipe I learned during my Thai cooking class. Before I get to the recipe, let me tell you about this class.

The class was held in a home which had a separate demonstration kitchen area as well as a covered patio to cook. The two instructors were fantastic and in addition to teaching us how to make several different dishes, they also educated us on the flavors of Thailand. We got to pick what we wanted to make out of several choice options, but walked away with a recipe book of all the options!

There were six people in the class and we all represented different countries. The first couple from the UK, included a man from Glasgow who was quite the personality and his sweet wife. They lived outside of London.  The next couple was from Poland, and the wife/girlfriend (I'm not quire sure what the nature of their relationship was) had won some local cooking competitions in her native Poland. Rounding out the group was me and a man from Australia.

The instructors would joke throughout the class as to who would put more chili peppers in their food. The man from Glasgow usually won out, and me and the Aussie were a close second. What can I say, I like my food hot!

So first up is the chicken satay. This sauce is boss. :)

Chicken Satay (serves 2-4 as an appetizer)

Ingredients:

• 4-6 pieces of chicken tender fillets (approximately 3/4 pound)
• Bamboo skewers

Marinade

• 2 tsp curry powder
• 2 tsp sweet condensed milk
• 1/2 cup coconut cream (important to note that this is not coconut milk, but cream. Coconut milk in the U.S. is mixed with water, so this is thicker, straight from the coconut. Hope to find this in an Asian supermarket)
• 2 TB cooking oil
• pinch of pepper
• pinch of salt

Peanut sauce

• 1 TB cooking oil
• 1/2- 1 TB red curry paste (depends on how spicy you want to make it)
• 1/2 cup ground peanuts
• 2 tsp palm sugar (regular sugar will work)
• 1/2 TB fish sauce
• 1/2 cup coconut cream
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1 TB tamarind paste or lime juice

Directions

Mix all the marinade ingredients together with the chicken. Allow the chicken to marinade 30 minutes.

While the chicken is marinading, make the peanut sauce. To do this, put the oil in a saucepan with curry paste and cook over low heat and fry until fragrant. Then add coconut cream and ground peanuts and continue stirring for few seconds. Add coconut milk, fish sauce, palm sugar, tamarind paste and stir well for 3 minutes until the sauce is thick.

Once the chicken is done marinading, skewer each slice of chicken onto a bamboo skewer (soak skewer in water to prevent sticking). Grill the skewered chicken and brush with remaining marinade until done and still moist. Probably 3-4 minutes a side.

Serve chicken with sauce as an awesome appetizer.