Chicken Satay at the BBQ

Yesterday, whilst I was wandering round the woods trying to find Ernie…again, I needed to take my mind off the fact that he might be stuck down a badger set, so I sat down and caught up with my Twitter stream.

I spotted that James Brewer from ‘Back to the Chopping Board‘ was making chicken satay for an evening barbecue too, so I suggested that we compare recipe notes. Here are mine:

As is my usual habit I noticed that I was missing a major ingredient for my Satay Sauce: Thai red curry paste. I decided to make some of my own as the food processor was out already and all that was missing from my stocks was the lemon grass.

It still tasted good and we have some paste left to make a curry during the week. So James – I did need that lemon grass after all!

Printable recipe

First slice up 3-6 chicken breasts across the grain to make flat strips roughly 3cm x 10cm.

Make the marinade by stirring this little lot together:

• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1tsp cumin
• 1tsp coriander
• 4 dessertspoons of coconut milk – from the can you will use for the sauce

Stir the chicken into the marinade and put it all in the fridge for an hour or two, or even overnight. I have done this with 2 chicken breasts but it easily stretched to 4 or 6. You should get about 6 skewers per breast if you have good sized ones! All the quantities are approximate, just go with what you have or make it as spicy as you fancy. Soak some wooden skewers in water to stop them burning on the BBQ.

Take your marinated bowl of chicken strips out of the fridge, then put rubber gloves on, to save you from getting yellow hands.

Spear the strips onto the ends of the wooden skewers weaving through the chicken 2-3 times.

The satay sauce

• 2-3oz of peanuts – ground up in the food processor (or use crunchy peanut butter)
• a can of coconut milk – minus the 4 spoonfuls used in the marinade
• 2 tsp of red curry paste, or a homemade version or even any other Thai curry paste you have
• 2 tblsp brown sugar
• Juice of ½ a lime (a lemon will do)

Heat the coconut milk and curry paste in a pan for 5 minutes to melt it together. Add the sugar, peanuts and lime juice and simmer gently for around 30 minutes, stirring regularly.

The sauce will gradually thicken and darken and some of the oil will come to the surface. Pour into a bowl and allow to cool a bit.

Barbecue or griddle the chicken quickly and at a high heat until the chicken is slightly blackened on the edges.

Dip in the yummy peanut sauce.

Then go nuts on the bouncy castle provided by Deb from Fabulous Places and David from Square Chilli.

I really, really wanted the next blogpost to be a non foody one. There will soon be a ‘housey’ blogpost when Ed has finished building the bathroom that he is plastering as we speak.